19 Sourced Bourbons You Should Consider Trying

You'd be hard-pressed to pick a better blend to kick off this list than Barrell's Batch 023, which sources from the three biggest bourbon-producing states — we assume. Come on, name a single possible contender — of Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. While Barrell's whole lineup, often tilting to rye, draws praise, this one's a real standout that whiskey lovers still talk about three extremely eventful years of releases later.

The tough part's going to be finding Barrell Batch 023, since it's a highly regarded bottle of an often sought-after bourbon. But if you do, you're lucky to find it pretty close to MSRP, or at least the going rate for Barrell releases. It's not exactly a collectible so much as the recommended expression to try if you're looking to see what Barrell's whole deal is about. If the hunt isn't part of the fun for you, and you're okay with shipping fees, you can have it in hand soon as you like by buying a bottle on Drizly, but don't think too long about it. For $80-plus it's a low-risk gamble when the real hazard is that it might fall from stock while you're trying to convince yourself to buy another $40 familiar label. And if you do miss out, well, don't fret too hard. Batch 024 was a pip, too.

There's more than one issue to take with Bulleit, but if you need a good one, Diageo's break with pioneering master blender Eboni Major, as reported by Gear Patrol, certainly raises both eyebrows. Even as her sourced Blender's Select was being hailed by critics, the production end had ripped apart, untenable.

Happily, the highly awarded and widely lauded Major found a new gig kicking off nascent producer Dread River Distilling Co.'s new Master Series in her hometown of Birmingham. Though the company is based in Alabama, Major blended Kentucky straight bourbon whiskeys from 2017 and 2019 to create this 2023 release that is still on pre-order, but reportedly tastes like a couple of fruit pies and a bit of oak. It must have felt like destiny for Major, whose grandmother lived adjacent to Dread River.

At least one bottle has made it into the wild or press hands, as a reviewer also found mint and tea in this well-positioned whiskey, which delivers nuance without tilting too hard in any direction calling it a triumphant debut for the series and a singlehanded success for Major. You know our take around here: we'll try anything once, and a 100-proof first. Good news for us and the whiskey world, then, that Major has lately gone into business with Marianne Eaves to curate the blind whiskey-tasting mail-order subscription service, EAVES BLIND.

Yeah yeah yeah, we know a lot of people think Jefferson's is a middling bourbon with a gimmick, but it's not a gimmick if it works. Whatever you think about the base, the finished product is briny and intriguing. You might not even like it. But it's different from anything else out there, and if a salty whiskey is indeed your thing, welcome aboard. Maybe we're biased in favor of the base anyway, but the great thing about the world is you don't owe anyone an account of your tastes. All we can do is articulate how warmly it resides on the tongue. There are a lot of sipping bourbons out there. Not nearly as many "sip-and-hold" ones, though.

Truth be told, picking a batch is hard, as these tend to vary quite a bit. So the dilemma becomes: group them all under the aged-at-sea banner and its saline qualities, or name the one that entrances the most after absorbing the properties of its unique voyage? We went with the former because each outing is a new adventure. If one is preferable to another, well, at least now you know after trying something new. That's the real spirit of what Jefferson's Ocean sells.

Though it may not remain on this list forever. Like many of the bourbons here, Jefferson's is moving towards independent production with its acquisition of Kentucky Artisan Distillery.

Nashville Barrel isn't just upfront about sourcing its whiskey; it boasts about how many sources it rejects. It's a company devoted to tracking down the best barrels out there, and then getting them on your palate at a fair price. Like evangelists of an entirely different kind of spirit, Nashville Barrel Co. just wants everyone to be able to enjoy great whiskey as much as its founders do. (Rum's also on the menu, if you're feeling tiki.) Single-barrel is the focus, but it also blends cask-strength bourbons and offers a single-hive, single-barrel, cask-strength release as well, which ... is single-hive a thing? Regardless, it shows what you can expect from this Tennessee distillery: a single-barrel single-mindedness tempered only by asking "How can we make these good barrels into something new and great?"

The company founders realized allocated bourbons were moving rapidly from value-bringers at favored shops to golden handcuffs too escalatory to ever sell, or else hunted to extinction in short order. Nashville Bourbon Co. resolved to get there first. NBC (yes, it does refer to itself as such) began hunting the next great thing and found so many great single barrels, that a year later created its own rickhouse to age them. Not a bad start for a company that launched in our collectively final non-nail-biting month, February 2020.

NULU's an odd label that could be either agave spirit aged in bourbon barrels or MGP-sourced bourbon that will eventually be replaced with in-house distillate. Like Nashville Barrel Co., Prohibition Craft Spirits has made a business of sourcing top-pick single barrels, and the plum pick just may be this one, finished for 13 days in an Amburana barrel.

Amburana wood (also called cerejeira) comes from Brazil, where this strain of oak has very desirable properties. The distilling and brewing worlds have lately discovered and come to love the cinnamon spiciness that it imbues in booze. This might be considered a game-ending advantage, but if the honey cask wasn't a cheat, why should the use of a rare oak be?

But it's not so simple as "This wood's taste is good in bourbon." Northeast Barrel Company explains that the wood contributes to more congeners, i.e. maturation compounds, for deeper and more complex flavors. Everybody wins (except the Brazilian forest) with the addition of an Amburana cask finish, or barring that, tossing in a spiral-cut dowel. For drinkers, there's a novel and pleasing taste. For distillers, they can create a more intriguing depth without having to wait 10 years. Just don't go crazy. Congeners have also been linked to worse hangovers, although it's admittedly a very broad chemical category.

Redemption doesn't obscure its MGP roots. There's no illusion or pretension here, just comfort and relaxation. The solid, all-purpose line wants to be the equivalent of the jeans you don't mind staining, the car you drive on errands, the weathered multitool in your pocket. It does many things to your satisfaction more than one thing to elite levels ... generally.

Then, sometimes, a great barrel comes along that just has to be set aside for the brand's high-rye, single-barrel program. Free from diminishment by chill filtration bottled up at a brawny 105 proof, these bottles embody Redemption's all-around utility at its peak. You get all that for another $10 up on the going rate for the others.

Of course, there's also the wheated bourbon if you want to spend a little more, but almost every reviewer out there favors the significantly lower-priced single barrel over the ultra-wheated mash bill's results. And isn't it always nice when the better deal wins on both price and flavor simultaneously?

With a name like Savage & Cooke The Burning Chair Bourbon and its austere, old photo for a label, you would quickly guess this is some ultra-smoky high-proof whose only filter is the number of people who can't handle its intensity. What you get instead is an elegant blend of at least one young bourbon (age statements can only cite the youngest in the mix, so we know one is four years) and mystery ones, gathered from Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee.

After a finish in the brand's own cabernet barrels, it's cut to one of the lower proofs out there at 88, and bottled up to wow you the drinker with its unique blend of flavors not only seldom combined, but rarely witnessed in a bottle of bourbon. Sweet and herbaceous seems to be the consensus, though not in the so-often-seen fruity pathway of cherries and lemons. Drinkhacker finds such comforting notes as eucalyptus, chai tea, and marshmallow keeping it chill against the initially expected cantankerous gunpowder and tobacco. The result is unlike anything else out there.

Widely respected and regarded as one of the canniest sourcers and blenders in the game, West Virginia's Smooth Ambler draws regular praise. Its blended (or mingled, according to the brand) Contradiction appears to be at least partially homemade, as the distillery releases its own cask strength bottles, blended in Contradiction with MGP and an undisclosed Tennessee distiller that, as is frequently the case, seems to be George Dickel, which also gave us some of Eboni Major's finest Bulleit work, and is a Barrell mainstay.

The sourced ("procured") Old Scout is often one of these two distilleries as well, carefully chosen from the stocks and kept as it is. Drinkers run kind of hot and cold on Old Scout knowing that it will never again be those 13-year stores of George Dickel scooped up cheap, but continue to show faith in Old Scout to find something quality to replace it.

So let us give you a tip: Old Scout is often best tasted at the bar so you know which batch you're getting into. But if you want to take a bottle home, find a great liquor store, pull up your eyelids, and scan for the six-year allocated store picks. These single barrels are expertly curated and wisely selected, usually under $50, and deliver that extra year of oomph that reviewers often wish for from the regular stock when it underwhelms.

Every Sweetens Cove discussion online begins with the "rich guy golf course" or "Peyton Manning celebrity gimmick" disaparager learning the error of his ways as someone more knowledgeable says it's very satisfying. Credit the great reviews to Marianne Eaves (she of the EAVES BLIND tasting above). With savvy blending, discriminating barrel-finish selection, and a considerable 13-year age statement on the 2020 release (though it'll cost you), Sweetens Cove silences its doubters. The annual releases know their worth and charge rich-guy Peyton Manning money, but you can grab a handle of Kennessee, the Kentucky/Tennessee blend, for about $60 and see if you like the magic being cast under the cap.

Reports say this is another Dickel discovery, which is to the Tennessee distillery (not to be conflated with Tennessee Distilling Group)'s credit as the powerhouse behind a lot of great brands. While some people dislike the slightly metallic under-tang of Dickel product (described across the internet as "that Flintstones vitamin taste") there's no denying that the quality is there even if it's not your particular taste. However, scuttlebutt says Dickel may start holding onto all that good stuff for itself to build up its brand, so change could be in the wind.

Yep, New York City has distilleries, although more accurately, it has a non-distilling producer in Brooklyn's Widow Jane. The Red Hook rickhouse's whole deal is keeping the proof in the double digits and using limestone water from upstate to give its bourbon that same quality found in Kentucky and Indiana. So it's not just the distillate being sourced, but the water that's cutting it.

And to be honest, we could probably take or leave the gambles of the regular edition, whose price tag charges New York City rent for Indiana occupancy (along with Tennessee and Kentucky). But taken as a lineup, Widow Jane is back in the game. We'd push over our own widowed grandma (it's okay, she's dead too) to get at Decadence, which does the same sweetened barrel finishing trick as Nelson Bros. Honey Cask, but with maple syrup. The genteel Lucky Thirteen, aged 13 years impresses even naysayers (hey, that's us! We admit it!) as does The Vaults, aged 14 years, with its long-trail taste for urban cowboys.

And we go big on corn varietals like Bloody Butcher, Wapsie Valley, and Hopi Blue in the mash bills. The strain of the grain has a big influence, as seen in the recent drop of Daniel Weller Emmer Wheat. But few distillers can say they have their own breed of corn like the Baby Jane, and that's a level of effort we can respect and enjoy.