Sometimes the best way to find out what you really think about a whiskey is to stop knowing what you’re drinking.
I’ve spent much of this year playing around with a small aging barrel, using the same barrel for a succession of inexpensive whiskeys and watching what happens as the wood changes from fill to fill. Along the way, I’ve also put together a couple of infinity-style blends that seemed worthy of joining the experiment.
So I decided it was time for a blind tasting.
I poured seven whiskeys into numbered sample bottles, mixed them up and tasted them one dram at a time. Five came from the ongoing barrel project. Two were recent blends.
The lineup included DeBolt’s No. 59, made from Benchmark Full Proof and aged three weeks in a barrel that had first been seasoned for a week with sherry; Rivertown Reserve, Buffalo Trace aged for a month in that same barrel; Old Reporter 2026 3rd Edition, Old Forester 100 Proof aged for six weeks; Free Bird, Early Times Bottled-in-Bond aged for two months; and Old Reporter 2026 5th Edition, Old Forester 100 Proof Rye aged for three months.
The outsiders were Lynchburg No. 24, a blend of 10 Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskeys and ryes barreled at 109 proof and then finished for a week with a charred oak stick, and Rare Old Elijah, an infinity blend of three “bourbon drinker’s ryes”: Wild Turkey Rare Breed Rye, Old Overholt and Elijah Craig Rye.
I knew all seven well enough that I figured I would recognize at least some of them.
As usual, the whiskey had other ideas.
Sample A — 84.96
Light mahogany in the glass.
The nose was rich with figs and raisins, sweet tobacco, caramel and cardamom. Most of that carried directly into the palate, although the oak and tobacco moved toward the front. Dried fruit remained prominent alongside caramel and brown sugar.
The mouthfeel was lightly oily, while the finish was warm and solid, bringing dried fruit, tart oak and cardamom.
The reveal: DeBolt’s No. 59.
That made sense once I knew what it was. The sherry-seasoned barrel showed itself most clearly in those figs and raisins. What’s encouraging is that the sherry didn’t overwhelm the whiskey. It became part of the profile rather than turning the whole thing into a dessert pour.
Score: 84.96
Sample B — 83.55
Solid copper color.
There was a little proof on the front of the nose, along with toasted oak, light caramel and vanilla. The palate immediately made me think rye, although during the blind tasting I wasn’t completely convinced. Stone fruit, brown sugar and caramel joined nutmeg and light oak.
The mouthfeel was lightly oily, and the finish was lengthy and spicy, led by cinnamon, caramel and peaches.
The reveal: Old Reporter 2026 5th Edition.
Yep. Rye.
This was the fifth fill of the barrel and the first time I had put a rye into it. Even after three months, the whiskey retained plenty of rye character, but the barrel rounded it nicely. There’s enough sweetness here to make it approachable without stripping away the spice that makes rye interesting.
Score: 83.55
Sample C — 86.47
Light mahogany.
The nose was immediately sweet and inviting: caramel, chocolate, bananas, nutmeg, toasted nuts and light oak.
The palate was even better. Brown sugar, caramel, bananas and chocolate formed the sweet core, while cinnamon, nutmeg and toasted oak kept everything from becoming too soft.
The mouthfeel was nicely viscous, and the finish was long and delicious.
The best description I wrote down was chocolate-covered bananas topped with toasted walnuts.
The reveal: Old Reporter 2026 3rd Edition.
And there was the winner.
This one started as plain old Old Forester 100 Proof — a bottle that remains one of the best values in bourbon — and spent six weeks in the barrel as its third fill.
Apparently six weeks was exactly what it needed.
The barrel added depth without burying the Old Forester character underneath a pile of oak. More importantly, this whiskey had something some of the others lacked: complexity. The flavors changed and developed instead of simply repeating themselves from nose to finish.
Score: 86.47
Sample D — 81.81
Mid-copper color.
The nose was sweet and inviting, showing brown sugar, ripe apples, caramel, vanilla and light oak.
Sweet oak jumped forward quickly on the palate, followed by apples, cherries, brown sugar, caramel and light cinnamon. The mouthfeel was lightly viscous, with a decent finish of brown sugar, cinnamon and toasted oak.
The reveal: Rivertown Reserve.
This was Buffalo Trace aged for one month during the barrel’s second fill.
It certainly wasn’t bad. An 81.81 is still a perfectly drinkable whiskey. But compared with some of the others, it felt a little less developed. The fruit was pleasant and the oak behaved itself, but nothing really separated it from the pack.
Score: 81.81
Sample E — 81.27
Solid copper.
The nose was lighter than expected, with caramel, brown sugar and nutmeg.
The palate was delicious but uncomplicated: toasted oak, caramel, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. The mouthfeel bordered on creamy, while the mid-length finish brought caramel, cinnamon and bananas.
The reveal: Rare Old Elijah.
That surprised me a little.
This blend contains three ryes I deliberately chose because they can appeal to bourbon drinkers, and perhaps that’s exactly what happened. Nothing about it screamed aggressive rye spice. Instead, it came across as soft, sweet and easy to drink.
Its biggest weakness wasn’t flavor. It was complexity.
There just wasn’t enough movement to push the score higher.
Score: 81.27
Sample F — 85.50
Borderline mahogany.
The nose somehow managed to say both bourbon and rye at the same time: buttery toffee, caramel, nutmeg, light stone fruit and brown sugar.
The palate was spicy, sweet and delicious, bringing tree fruit, toffee, cinnamon, caramel and light oak.
The mouthfeel was nicely viscous, and the finish was lengthy and spicy, with brown sugar, cinnamon, toffee and tart cherries.
The reveal: Lynchburg No. 24.
This may have been the most interesting whiskey in the tasting.
Lynchburg No. 24 combines 10 different Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskeys and ryes, was blended to 109 proof, barreled and then finished for a week with a charred oak stick.
That sounds like the sort of experiment that could go badly in about six different ways.
Instead, it finished second.
More importantly, I thought it tasted like what it actually is: a marriage of bourbon-like Tennessee whiskey sweetness and rye spice. The different components were still recognizable, but they worked together rather than fighting for attention.
At 85.50, Lynchburg No. 24 came within one point of winning the entire blind.
I’m calling that a successful experiment.
Score: 85.50
Sample G — 80.51
Mid-copper.
The nose was on the lighter side but still inviting, with caramel, toffee, nutmeg and peanuts.
The palate opened with creamy, buttery peanut butter before moving into brown sugar, caramel, nutmeg and tart cherries.
The mouthfeel was a bit thin, although the finish wasn’t bad, offering tart fruit, candy-coated peanuts and cinnamon.
The reveal: Free Bird.
This was probably the biggest disappointment of the group.
Free Bird started with Early Times Bottled-in-Bond, which is already a whiskey I enjoy, and it received two full months in the barrel. On paper, that should have produced something pretty interesting.
Instead, it finished seventh.
The peanut character wasn’t unpleasant — in fact, I kind of liked it — but the thinner mouthfeel hurt the score, and the whiskey simply didn’t have the depth of the leaders.
That doesn’t make Free Bird a failure. It does reinforce something I’ve been learning throughout this project: more time in the barrel doesn’t automatically mean better whiskey.
Score: 80.51
The Final Ranking
- Old Reporter 2026 3rd Edition — 86.47
- Lynchburg No. 24 — 85.50
- DeBolt’s No. 59 — 84.96
- Old Reporter 2026 5th Edition — 83.55
- Rivertown Reserve — 81.81
- Rare Old Elijah — 81.27
- Free Bird — 80.51
The spread from first to last was less than six points, so there wasn’t a bad whiskey in the group. Still, there were some clear differences.
Old Reporter 3rd Edition had the best combination of sweetness, complexity, mouthfeel and finish. Lynchburg No. 24 wasn’t far behind and may have been the most intriguing pour of the night. DeBolt’s No. 59 proved that the sherry-seasoning experiment worked, while the rye version of Old Reporter showed that the increasingly seasoned barrel still had something useful to contribute.
But the biggest lesson may be what happened with Free Bird.
It spent longer in the barrel than three of the first four entries and still finished last.
That’s the danger with little-barrel projects. You can’t simply say three weeks is good, so six weeks must be better, and three months must be better still. Each whiskey interacts differently with the wood, and the barrel itself changes every time something passes through it.
That’s also what makes this ridiculous little experiment so much fun.
I’m five fills into this barrel now. One final fill remains.
And after tasting these seven blind, I’m even more curious about what that barrel has left to give. (For the record, I have a Jack Daniel’s blend aging in my final fill, and it’s due to come out just after Thanksgiving. I’ll let you know how it turns out.)
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
