Over time, Woodford Reserve has launched quite a few intriguing whiskeys by means of its Distillery Sequence—a group of experimental releases offered solely on the distillery in Versailles, Kentucky. However few of those expressions have captured the hearts and minds of the Woodford devoted greater than Double Double Oaked, which takes Woodford’s flagship bourbon and provides it an extra-long end in toasted oak barrels. For the previous decade, drinkers needed to both journey to Woodford to snag a bottle or take their possibilities on the secondary market. However at the moment the distillery publicizes that this bourbon might be out there nationwide going ahead.
Doubling Down
Double Double Oaked was first launched in 2015 and, as grasp distiller Elizabeth McCall remembers, it was one thing of a contented accident. Three years earlier, Woodford Reserve launched Double Oaked, a 5–7 yr previous bourbon that was completed in toasted and flash-charred barrels for a further 6–12 months. McCall—who was Woodford’s grasp taster on the time—observed that the completed bourbon began to select up some new flavors across the 12-month mark. Intrigued, she determined to complete a number of Double Oaked barrels for greater than 12 months to see what would occur.
After a couple of yr, McCall sat down with then-master distiller Chris Morris to guage the outcomes of a ending time that averaged 24 months. Throughout the tasting, they have been each enamored by the “important taste shift” they discovered. “It went from that butterscotch/caramel loveliness to a very totally different pretty taste profile of wealthy darkish chocolate, roasted espresso,” recounts McCall.
Woodford determined to launch the whiskey, which it known as Double Double Oaked for the reason that ending size was twice so long as Double Oaked’s. Initially, the plan was for it to be a one-off for guests to the distillery, since Woodford had a really restricted variety of these longer-finished shares readily available. McCall remembers that the primary batch offered out in seven months, and that followers responded to it with overwhelming enthusiasm. Thus motivated, the staff determined to deliver again Double Double Oaked as an annual launch—annually tucking away 30 barrels for prolonged ending—however these subsequent batches would promote out sooner and sooner.
Ultimately, the Woodford staff made the choice to ramp up manufacturing with a view to fulfill the rising demand, with the final word aim of increasing availability past the distillery. A part of the plan included giving the Double Double Oaked barrels their very personal rickhouse, the place they might be saved individually from the remainder of Woodford’s stock. McCall notes that the warehousing resolution was made solely for logistical causes, and that the Double Double rickhouse is mainly the identical as the opposite rickhouses when it comes to format and temperature management.
It took a little bit of time, however the distillery has lastly constructed up sufficient quantity to supply Double Double Oaked to followers across the nation. “It was simply stock administration,” says McCall. “We lastly obtained our shares to a spot the place we may introduce [the whiskey] to a wider viewers, after which even have sufficient stock to proceed doing it yr over yr.” It would proceed to be an annual launch, with new batches touching down between January and February.
This yr’s batch is the biggest one but: encompassing roughly 300 barrels, roughly 10 occasions bigger than the debut batch. The whiskey, which has a prompt retail worth of $200/700 ml, is presently rolling out to retailers throughout the U.S. and Canada. As of this morning, it’s additionally presently out there for buy on the distillery, with a restrict of two bottles per buyer whereas provides final. It would even be out there for buy by way of the Woodford Reserve on-line store, which ships to Kentucky, North Dakota, Nebraska, and D.C.
Sticking To The Recipe
In the event you’re already a fan of Double Double Oaked, the good information is that this new batch might be very harking back to the older ones. Going into the enlargement venture, McCall wished to make as few modifications to the recipe as potential, with the intention of protecting the precise taste profile as earlier batches. Initially, there was some dialogue across the distillery about utilizing youthful liquid for the venture, however McCall was fast to shoot down that concept. “Every part must be constant,” she mentioned. “If my identify is happening this, I would like it to be matching what individuals fell in love with…If it ain’t broke, let’s not do something to attempt to ‘repair it.’”
Actually, the recipe mainly hasn’t modified a lot for the reason that first batch arrived 10 years in the past. The bottom bourbon—a 5–7 yr previous with a mashbill of 72% corn, 18% rye, and 10% malted barley—has remained constant throughout the previous decade. The only distinction is that newer batches make the most of a barely longer end—clocking in at a mean of 30 months, in comparison with the 24-month interval seen by earlier variations. However that apart, McCall says that any batch-to-batch variations must be negligible. “You possibly can evaluate [batches] yr over yr, and there shouldn’t be any main variations,” she claims. “If there are, any person must let me know, as a result of one thing has gone flawed and I haven’t executed my job,” she added with a chuckle.
Arguably an important a part of the Double Double Oaked method is the ending cask of selection. Although typically missed, toasted casks are a little bit of a signature for Brown-Forman’s whiskeys—it’s most frequently recognized with Woodford Reserve, however sister model Jack Daniel’s additionally broadly makes use of them, as does Cooper’s Craft and Outdated Forester. Brown-Forman has been toasting its personal barrels for the reason that ’90s, primarily for the Sonoma-Cutrer wine label which it offered to Duckhorn in 2023. Woodford Reserve’s earliest forays into toasted cask ending have been straight impressed by these wines, with the primary Double Oaked venture aiming to duplicate the butteriness of a chardonnay by tapping closely toasted and flash-charred barrels usually used to age chardonnay.
Woodford Reserve will get its barrels from Brown-Forman’s cooperage in Louisville, Kentucky, a state-of-the-art facility that actually hangs its hat on its toasting program. Every Brown-Forman model has a unique and proprietary toasting routine executed to the distillers’ specs. Whereas the precise steps of the method are a carefully guarded secret—even the cooperage’s tour program skips the toasting stage—Woodford Reserve’s Double Double Oaked ending casks are toasted for 40 minutes, roughly 4 occasions longer than the method used to toast its maturation casks.
