CH: Any plans to replicate what happened?

DD: Without getting too much into it, yes. We’re going to experiment. Basically, we’re going to attempt to simulate what happened, though there’s obviously no guarantee that we’ll get the same magic.

To that point, we’ve actually found a third barrel of the same quality. It was not a leaker, and had a traditional amount of angel’s share loss. In other words, we’re going to find honey barrels from time to time because of who-knows-what variables. I think that anyone who says that ‘this or that’ makes bourbon good, they’re full of it.

CH: What has been the connoisseur response to Barrel Strength?

DD: Phenomenal. We sent [WhiskyCast Host] Mark Gillespie a bottle. He said it was one of the best bourbons he had ever tasted. Later, he expanded that to it being one of the best whiskeys he had ever tasted.

We sent a bottle to [noted whiskey writer] Clay Rizen of the New York Times. He posted it on Instagram with the phrase “One of the best craft whiskeys I have ever tasted.”

CH: What’d they like about it?

DD: How smooth it is, especially at that proof. They said it was complex. Mark kept gushing about that, the complexity and the mouth feel.

To get those kinds of compliments means a lot to us. As a new distillery, that’s something we’re looking for: validation from people that we know and admire.

Kyle Swartz is the associate editor of Cheers Magazine. Reach him at kswartz@epgmediallc.com.