Barrel Selections - Our Philosophy
In this article, we want to talk about our Barrel Picks
What is our philosophy on Barrel picks?
How did Brady Johnson & Brooks Raley settle on the current River Roots Selections?
What picks are coming up in the future?
Let's talk about it
Quality-Over-Quantity: Our Heart for Barrel Selections
o put it simply, Quality-over-Quantity, is our heart for Barrel selections. With many groups and clubs, there is an administrative temptation to put out as many picks as possible, to "bring to the group." Setting a desired number of picks per year, and a desired release cadence, and then putting your nose to the grindstone to meet that desired volume no matter what. Sometimes that works out just fine, for a long time. But being into Bourbon for as long as I have, I have seen examples of this turning south, too many times.
I have seen clubs start out strong, with amazing picks, only for those picks to slowly diminish in quality over time, for the sake of keeping up volume, and keeping picks moving. That is never going to be BRBNFNDR's approach. Not that there is anything wrong with more generic picks, but we don't think anyone necessarily needs an Elijah Craig Private Barrel from us that, while good, doesn't really taste orders of magnitude different than anyone else's.
Our desire is to focus on truly amazing, exclusive, harder to come by, and unique expressions. We are tasting barrels all the time. When a barrel comes along that makes the cut, we will put it out. But we will never put out a lackluster pick for the sake of "getting another one out soon."
So just know, if we land on something that is being rolled out as a BRBNFNDR pick, it was probably a long time coming. It was a 'few and far between' barrel, and it was not selected just to select something. We have no desire to waste your time, or your money. If that means less volume, to maintain the integrity and quality that we feel our picks deserve, then so be it. With all of that being said; We do still care about quantity and accessibility. So, we will put out as many amazing picks as we possibly can. But that depends on the barrels, and not a schedule.
How Did Brooks & Brady Select The Current Picks? Why Did They Make The Cut?
SouthPaw
rooks and I reached out to River Roots several months back, with the desire to find an amazing Buff-Turkey barrel. Knowing that the vast majority of these barrels were getting rapidly bought up at this time, we knew we would need some assistance. Through the combined 'bend-over-backwards' efforts of Chris Wiedmar from HogsHead, Ryan Lintz from River Roots, and a couple of distilleries and other industry contacts, we were able to secure 12 buff turkey barrels to sample from. All shortbarrels. Most of them, incredible. We took the best of the best barrels, that a certain distillery had actually purchased and set aside for themselves. That is about all I can say on that.
SouthPaw is an experience, in a bottle.
Catcher In The Rye
uch like the SouthPaw, we worked our way through several ryes, over video calls. All of them were great, they were 12+ year MGP ryes. But that didn't stop me from starting to think "Okay. It's fine if we don't do a rye, right now." Don't get me wrong..every sample was worthy of being someones pick! There just weren't any clearly uniquely amazing, set apart, ryes.
That is, until I got to the last sample. Admittedly by mistake, as it was the lowest proof of the samples( 124.96p), which I would typically taste first. I went into this final pour with a slight bias against it. I think there was a part of me that had already written it off, because the higher proof samples hadn't blown me away with flavor, and I typically like my whiskey, on the jet fuel side of the spectrum. I was wrong.
This sample immediately did what I had been hoping one of them would, the entire time. It set itself apart with an immediate explosion of rich flavors. That wasn't good enough for me yet, though. This sample was amazing and the clear winner of it's lineup, but if it was going to be pick that we would be willing to send out to members, I was going to need to see how it fared next to some heavy hitting legacy ryes. It held its own against every one of them, and was the back to back winner in a double blind between itself, and my 2012 Thomas H Handy.
Catcher In The Rye is dropping June 18, 2025. Full tasting notes/review will be up on the BRBNFNDR shop page.
Graham Slam
early 11 year old, cask strength, double oak Heaven Hill. I could probably just end it there.
The tasting process for this was not nearly as drawn out as the previous two. We got access to an amazing barrel, we were sent samples of it, tried it, and said "uh...absolutely." This stuff is incredible. Sweet-dense-heavy oak-graham cracker-Krispy Kreme donut-vanilla, etc etc. If you don't win a right-to-purchase for the SouthPaw, we promise, this will help ease the pain.
Graham Slam is dropping June 25th, 2025 @ 12pm EST
What Picks Are Coming Up?
e have a lot going on with picks at the moment. We are in the beginning phases of planning out picks with Bourboneur, Whiskey Weather, Whiskey Bonded, NEO Bourbon Community, Bros Liquor, and more. There will also be continuations in the Brooks Raley X BRBNFNDR line, and we are excited to continue working with Brooks on these awesome releases.
Additionally, we have some allocated store picks that BRBNFNDR members will have exclusive access to in the relatively near future, as well as another surprise River Roots pick dropping sooner that you think!
BRBNFNDR Barrel Picks - An Interview with NY Mets Pitcher, Brooks Raley
Brooks, bourbon introduced us to each other, and we have gotten to do some pretty fun picks together! What would you say is your favorite part of the bourbon community/hobby?
What is your vision for future releases? What sort of things peak your interest the most, as far as exclusive release collaborations?
Who has been helpful and the most fun to work with, when it comes to acquiring barrels and putting out releases? Is there anyone you would like to shout out?
When should we expect to see the next release with your name on it? After these picks, people are going to want all the smoke.
BRBNFNDR exclusive releases are reserved for and released to, BRBNFNDR members. To become a BRBNFNDR member and gain access to the internets ONLY real-time bourbon drop notification service, as well as access to exclusive picks, giveaways, and other member perks; sign up here!
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