The regular Belle Meade Bourbon is made from just 4 barrels per batch. The Belle Meade Reserve Cask Strength Bourbon, however, is made from 7 barrels. It’s also aged longer and has a higher proof than the classic and yet it’s only $20 more. Which puts it about $15-$20 cheaper than a bottle of Booker’s.

The combined mash bill on this whiskey will change from release to release since it’s a mix of casks aged 7-11 years with no defined blend. Sometimes it will have more of the 60/36/4 recipe and other times it’ll have more of the 70/21/9 recipe. But in the end it’s always a high-rye bourbon and more-often-than-not it’s incredibly delicious.

To say I’m excited to finally sit down and do this bourbon review is an understatement.

Belle Meade Reserve Cask Strength Bourbon Review: Details and Tasting Notes

In Nelson’s Green Brier’s Words:

We taste every barrel in our inventory and reserve the ones that taste good enough to be a Single Barrel but don’t have a high enough proof to be a Single Barrel. We batch these reserve barrels with others barrels in our inventory that raise the proof of the batch while accentuating the flavors of those reserve barrels. When blended together, these barrels of well-aged bourbon create a product that is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Details (price, mash bill, cask type, ABV, etc.)

Region: Indiana, USA

Distiller: MGP
Bottler: Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery
Mash Bill: 60+% Corn, 21+% Rye and 4+% Malted Barley
Cask: New Charred Oak
Age: NAS (At least 7 years)
ABV: 56.2%

Cask Strength | Non-Chill Filtered | Natural Color

Batch: 13
Bottle: 93

Price: $60

Tasting Notes

EYE
Ruddy copper

NOSE
Oak, cocoa, cornbread, spice, char, copper and bits of minerality and dark fruit.

PALATE
Oak, cocoa, cornbread, apricots, spice, char, dark sweets, copper and bits of minerality and dark fruit.

FINISH
Long -> Spice, oak, dark sweets and brownies.

BALANCE, BODY & FEEL
Perfectly balanced, round full body and a heavy oily feel.

Belle Meade Reserve Cask Strength Bourbon Review: Overall and Score

I love this whiskey. The Aroma is a dense heavy rustic profile that’s sweetly oaky; Palate continues the theme but with more fruit notes and darkly sweet notes complimenting the heavy oak; Finish is long and elegant with a unique brownie note as it fades. So good.

This Belle Meade Reserve Cask Strength Bourbon is just fantastic; this is Kentucky Chew good — that’s the closest thing I can approximate it to in the level of depth and rich “bourboness” it holds inside. Without a doubt this, batch 13, is my favorite batch – or single barrel – I’ve had from them that wasn’t sherry finished.

SCORE: 90/A-

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