Prav Saraff’s Dream Spirits 8 Year Old Cask Strength Kentucky Bourbon (Gotham Barrel Club Pick) Review

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Prav Saraff is the owner of West Dupont Circle Wines & Liquors. If you’re ever in Washington DC, it’s a requirement to make the trip to his store. One of the great things about not being an official state is the lack of regulations on buying and selling alcohol. That means stores like Prav’s can buy rare bottles from collectors and resell them in his shop. He can even ship bottles as well, but the legalities of doing that are complicated. The only other place you can do that in is Kentucky and even then, the recent vintage bourbon resale laws don’t quite have all the kinks worked out.

Not only is Prav’s store a big name when it comes to single barrel picks (have you seen anyone else get their own single barrel of Joseph Magnus Cigar Blend?), but he’s recently decided to become a producer as well.

Prav isn’t going to open up a distillery anytime soon, but he is sourcing barrels of whiskey to bottle under his own label that he named “Dream Spirits.” This brand is his way of having full control over the contents inside of the bottle. Howso? He approaches brokers to sample their inventory and only picks the ones he likes – regardless of who produced it. He then has the barrels shipped to his warehouse located in Washington DC until he’s ready to bottle them. Some are bottled as single barrels and some are batched together. He even allows some to age a little bit longer.

Leafing through his inventory sales, I can tell that he’s sold primarily rye whiskey from MGP in Indiana and bourbon from Jim Beam and MGP. He refers to his barrels of Beam as being “Made with Booker’s Yeast.” More on that in a bit.

Gotham Barrel Club picks a Dream Spirits barrel

Gotham Barrel Club is a private whiskey aficionados group located in and around the New York City area. They are also a charitable organization that supports pet and animal shelters with the proceeds from their bottle sales. They decided to do a single barrel pick through Prav’s Dream Spirits line and ended up picking an 8-year-old barrel of Kentucky Bourbon. The mash bill is 79/13/8 and was made with “Booker’s Yeast.” In reality, what I described is a young barrel of Knob Creek.

I assume there are many people out there who argue with my Knob Creek comment and say these are reject barrels of Booker’s. For those of you who don’t know what the difference is between the two, I’ll explain. But first, both sides need to realize that Beam is tight-lipped on their recipes and distillation methods but it’s generally accepted that:

Booker’s/Baker’s – Comes off the still at 125 proof and enters the barrel at the same proof. The point is that no water is added during this process.

Knob Creek – Comes off the still at 130 proof and enters the barrel at 125 proof. Water is added to cut it down those extra 5 points.

Jim Beam labeled products – Comes off the still at 135 proof and enters the barrel at 125 proof resulting in even more water being used.

Now let’s talk about the mash bills. Jim Beam products use one of three different bourbon mash bills (not counting the high-rye Old Grand Dad/Basil Hayden kind). They are 77/13/10, 75/13/12 and 79/13/8 (also referred to as 78.5/13/8.5). Notice that all 3 use the same percentage of flavoring grain (rye). I would strongly argue that it doesn’t matter that the corn and malted barley ratios differ slightly, what matters in terms of taste are the rye component and the yeast. Speaking of yeast, Beam propagates their own and ferments those three recipes (and their rye whiskey) with it.

The Beam mash bill conundrum

I don’t actually know which mash bills belong to which Beam label, but if I were a guessing man, I’d say that the 79/13/8 mash bill is what Knob Creek uses. Here’s why…

Back in 2018/2019/2020, the Knob Creek single barrel program was suddenly awash with 14-to 16-year-old barrels. It was like Beam was having a fire sale on all their oldest barrels. They were cheap, too. $55 for a 120 proof, 15-year-old bottle was an absolute steal. We’ll never see anything like it again.

It’s unknown why Beam was suddenly trying to offload these barrels, but rumor has it they were trying to reset the entire brand so that they could introduce older versions later and have them slot into higher price categories. This is essentially what happened. After 2020, the age statements on Knob Creek Single Barrels dropped down to 9-10 years old. At least the price stayed the same at $55. Beam then positioned their new Knob Creek 12 Year label above it at the $65 price point. Knob Creek 15 Year was given a $125 suggested retail price and Knob Creek 18 was sold a couple years later for $180.

Here’s where I start getting to the point – during this same period of time, barrel brokers suddenly obtained possession of “mystery totes” of unidentified 15-year-old Kentucky bourbon. A tote is essentially a food-safe plastic cube that holds around 1000 liters of liquid. All of these totes were between 105 and 115 proof (under the minimum 120 proof that Knob Creek Single Barrel requires). The mash bill listed was on them was 78.5/13/8.5. There were a few companies that bought them and outright said “our bourbon is sourced from Jim Beam.” Others wanted to be more secretive about their provenance, but it was too late, everyone knew.

So here we are in 2024 and this mash bill is showing back up again – this time with the numbers rounded a little to be nice and even (but really they did this as a slight of hand). Don’t be fooled – this is still the same mash bill we’re talking about. The ages for these barrels have all been listed between 8 to 10-years-old – which falls right in line with what Knob Creek single barrels are being bottled at these days.

The telltale sign that they’re rejected Knob Creek single barrels is that none of the barrels seem to be over 120 proof. That means they cannot become a Knob Creek Single Barrel. If you still don’t believe me, then just know that there are plenty of NDPs out there using 79/13/8 barrels that have already revealed the source is Beam.

Now that my exposition is done, it’s time to get drinking. I sampled my bottle of Dream Spirits neat in a glencairn.

Tasting Notes

Nose: Strong scents of vanilla pound cake followed by Werther’s Original caramel candies. Baking spices are best described as “cinnamon rolls” that accompany a good amount of fragrant seasoned oak and a bit of potpourri (strange!). There is also a somewhat complex scent that are similar to Riccola cough drops.

Palate: An oily mouthfeel that reveals itself along with a moderate amount of heat on the first sip. The heat is courtesy of flavors that taste like cinnamon Red Hots and red pepper flakes. I find a taste similar to peppermint oil, but I wouldn’t exactly say that makes this taste like it has a high amount of rye in the mash bill. Sweetness comes by way of toffee, vanilla pudding and sweet oak. There are some fruit notes floating around that lighten up the palate with a small amount of cherries and orange zest. Complexity comes from flat birch beer soda, baker’s chocolate and a dash of hazelnut spread.

Finish: The finish sticks around for a while with the buzz of those hot cinnamon candies I mentioned earlier. They smolder on the back part of my tongue after the sip is complete. One of the other significant notes I’m finding is a sweet, cooling mint chocolate chip ice cream sensation followed by a small herbal flavor. Tannins are courtesy of a little bit of sweet oak and barrel char.

Score: 7.8/10

Usually I like to use this paragraph to sum up my feelings about the bottle I just reviewed. I kept glancing back and forth between my notes and the bottle until it occurred tome that it was already half empty by time I got around to reviewing it.

With so much whiskey at my house, this is a very rare feat. I remembered all of the times that I would look through my collection (selection?) for something that fit the mood and ended up reaching for this bottle because it scratches so many itches. It’s satisfying, proofy and has plenty of bold flavors. But it’s also not so hot that I feel like I need to stop after one glass. This is also how I feel about Knob Creek Single Barrels – they’re so versatile that they fit the mood no matter what the circumstances. Not many whiskies check that box for me.

Final Thoughts

I came into this review with the mindset that this was going to be an uninteresting bottle. I already knew its origins, I had already had lots of other bottles like it and I was sure that it would get put on my shelf and collect dust. I was wrong.

Easy drinkers with lots of versatility and fair price points will never go out of style. This Dream Spirits pick by Gotham Barrel Group has all of those traits in spades. Just do yourself a favor and replace that damn glass cork with something that’s easier to remove when you get your bottle!