Bourbon Trail Tales (Part 3!) - Peerless Barrel Pick
Background
Quick background- our whiskey group here in DC (J St Whiskey) was fortunate enough to partner with some local establishments (shoutout to District Liquors, Show of Hands and Cinder BBQ) to head out to Kentucky and pick a Peerless Bourbon barrel recently. As a few of our picking crew had not been out to the promised land yet, we decided to build in a fair amount of tours and stops. I wanted to share some of my takeaways from our experiences throughout our trip, with the hope being that others heading out to KY find some of this useful:
Part 3: Our experience picking at Peerless
In the past two posts, I broke things down by distillery, tour, and also noted some interesting stops we made along the way! This one will be all about our experience touring and then picking a barrel at Peerless. Spoiler alert- it was awesome.
Peerless Tour
First thing we did upon arriving at Peerless was… say hi to the awesome distillery cat. Immediately after that, John Wadell, Peerless’ single barrel manager, took us around the distillery.
The Peerless tour setup is excellent, with everything about their process out in the open and interactive. We tasted directly from the fermenters, and moved downstairs to taste white dog right off the still (fruity and delicious and it was also about 10:30 AM when we tried it- hell of a way to start the day). Post distillation, the whiskey is put exclusively into Kelvin Cooperage barrels, which are then aged on site, off site or a mixture of both (like the barrel we ended up choosing).
We also took a look at their newly upgraded bottling line, which was just upgraded from filling 4 bottles at a time to 8. John and the Peerless team pulled a sample of their latest small batch bourbon directly off the line for us. If you’ve been sleeping on Peerless Small Batch Bourbon, keep your eye out for Batch 53 to hit the shelves. It apparently is mostly 6 year stock, proof around 115, and it was delicious. After our tour was complete, we headed back to the tasting room to make our selection!
Pick Process
Now to our pick, which we partnered with Cinder BBQ and Show of Hands here in DC to do. We also consider ourselves fortunate to have the opportunity, as Peerless only does about 120 picks per year. Once we got into the tasting room we were greeted with 4 samples, a small batch sample for a baseline and 3 single barrel selections. Just a quick note- I really appreciate the small batch sample! I can’t recall another pick where a baseline like this is provided, and it is really helpful to compare against the samples to see if they’re more off or on profile.
Initially we all quietly tasted through the samples without discussion. When discussion began, there was a near immediate consensus around sample two. It’s a dark, viscous, brown sugary flavor bomb with a finish that went on and on. Just to check our mettle (and maybe because we coalesced around our pick hilariously quickly), John pulled a 4th sample for us to see how it stood up to sample two. While the 4th proved to be a fun, and slightly off-profile, almost citrusy option, sample two was still our favorite and we locked it in.
We’ve had the pleasure of doing a few picks now (both on and off site) and, at least of the ones I’ve been involved in, I don’t think we’ve ever been treated as well as the folks from Peerless treated us. Post picking, John busted out what I believe was every option currently available in the gift shop. This certainly ended up being mutually beneficial, as I’m pretty sure 4 of the 6 of us tasted and then immediately bought their “Gold Rush” single barrel rye. Throughout the tour and tasting, virtually anyone who is anyone at Peerless stopped by to say hi and chat with us, including owners Corky and Carson Taylor. We also said a quick hello to former Master Distiller Caleb Kilburn and former COO Cordell Lawrence, who actually just announced a new venture. Hell, we even got to meet John’s mom, who frequently cooks lunch for the distillery staff on site.
After a delightfully involved tour, pick, and then essentially a second tasting of gift shop options, we slapped our sticker on our barrel. John was also kind enough to refill our sample bottle right from the barrel so we could bring home a full sample of our pick. Cheers to everyone at Peerless for letting us come out and get this done!
Notable Gift Shop Offerings: Peerless High Rye Bourbon, Rum finished Bourbon, a distillery exclusive bourbon single barrel (I forgot the name), a distillery exclusive rye single barrel dubbed “Gold Rush”.
