Orphan Barrel Fable & Folly Review

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“There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who think Orphan Barrel is an overrated, outrageously-priced whiskey that’s bottled at too low of a proof and those who don’t know what Orphan Barrel is.”

-Thoreau

Throughout my short time of tasting and writing about whiskey, I’ve never had an Orphan Barrel product that has genuinely impressed me. If any of them came close, it would be probably be Lost Prophet. The fact of the matter is that Diageo – the parent company of the Orphan Barrel brand – remains tight-lipped on much of the whiskey that the brand uses in their blends. Their intention might be to create curiosity among potential buyers, but real enthusiasts have long since decided that the whiskey they use is never worth it.

Another year, another Orphan Barrel release

Fable & Folly was the name of Orphan Barrel’s 2022 release. To create it, the OB team claimed to use the remaining stocks of bourbon from the Rhetoric, Forged Oak and Barterhouse releases. They all use the same bourbon recipe (86% corn, 6% rye and 8% malt) but were bottled at different ages. My opinion is that they were probably destined for IW Harper products before Heaven Hill bought the Bernheim Distillery in 1999. The barrels were transported to the Stitzel-Weller campus to continue aging there.

I will admit that among Orphan Barrel products, these are some of the highest regarded ones. But Fable and Folly probably isn’t just a blend of those three bourbons. We know this because the front and side labels never call it a bourbon. Instead, they refer to the final product as “whiskey.”

By leaving off the word bourbon, it opens up a huge can of worms. Does that mean that caramel coloring was added? Is there a different whiskey type that was blended in like Canadian. light whiskey or rye whiskey? My hunch is that Fable & Folly had a different whiskey blended into the Rhetoric/Barterhouse/Forged Oak batch. I say this because the age statement is 14-years-old. None of the three core bourbons listed in the blend were less than 15 years old. That means something else had to make its way into it. My guess is on Light Whiskey from MGP only because there was a lot on the market at that time, it wouldn’t add any weird flavors into a blend and it was cheap.

Fable & Folly

Orphan Barrel releases are rarely bottled above 90 proof. Fable & Folly is no exception. Diageo probably does this to appeal to a wider audience or to stretch the blend to fill more bottles (there were more than 50,000 bottles of F&F released). I believe they do it to lessen the impact of the oak and tannins. After all, 14+ years in a barrel will add a lot of bitterness into the liquid and adding water helps soften them.

The artwork that Orphan Barrel uses on their labels is always a colorful and creative. Fable & Folly continues this trend with a rendition of a beast that’s part Fox (Barterhouse), Hummingbird (Rhetoric) and Stag (Forged Oak). It’s visually attractive which is probably why the brand manages to sell so well. But how does it taste? That’s the question I’m here to answer. I sampled this neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Big oak scents combine with leather and varnish to create a nose that’s dripping with age. I’m finding some maple wood and chocolate sauce notes as well. Fruit scents come by way of fried apples and dates while nutmeg and ground cinnamon round off the spices. Occasionally, I’ll find a nutty scent hiding within.

Palate: Upon first sip, my tongue is bombarded with lots of oak, varnish, ash and dried tobacco leaf. This tannic onslaught is almost too much. Sweeter notes help save it from becoming a bitter affair with caramel and vanilla barely showing up. I find dried tea leaves which are somewhat elegant in a whiskey like this. Then there’s a tiny prickle of peppermint to round things out.

Finish: The lingering notes after the sip is complete are not necessary bitter and over-oaked, but that’s the central theme. The finish drops off significantly because there wasn’t much to hold it up in the first place. Oak, leather and tobacco accompany ash and light vanilla. Save for the last one, it’s a one-dimensional affair.

Score: 6.4/10

Fable & Folly started out on the right foot with a fantastic nose that had a beautiful array of tannins and a balanced amount of spices – then it went downhill. The palate was still chock-full of tannins and varnish but the sweetness dropped off significantly. This allowed the bitterness to creep in. As I explained in my notes on the finish, the bitterness never truly took over, but the rest of the experience was impacted.

It’s a shame how much this whiskey underperformed because there aren’t many bottles out there containing 14-to-20-year-old barrels in the blend. Part of the blame must rest on recipe. If this mash bill was originally made for pre-1990s IW Harper products, then it was never meant to be a powerhouse of flavor. IW Harper was always a softer bourbon made for refined gentleman and polite sipping. Its low rye content was a feature, not a bug. It would limit the spice and other rye flavors that sometimes come along with it. This is why Orphan Barrel’s many labels lack the spark that other distilleries have.

Final Thoughts

I find myself drinking Orphan Barrel products from time-to-time just to reconfirm that I’m not missing out on much. Fable & Folly allowed me to check that box again. It’s too bad that Diageo couldn’t mandate their master blender come up with something more interesting or with a higher proof. This bottle and its label deserve a better whiskey inside.