Visited buffalo trace distillery this weekend, very cool overall. My first distillery and just did the basic tour. Of note, in the bottling room there was a pallet of OWA 107 ready to go...12 cases per row, 7 rows. Assuming 12 per case...1008 bottles. Also, they had pappy bottles sans labels on the ready to start bottling. In the gift shop, nothing of note: eagle rare, white dog, buffalo trace, buffalo creme, and their new vodka. Grabbed a handle of buffalo trace and two crimes from there.
Hit the Liquor Barn after that and based in large part on suggestions here picked up:
- Very Old Barton BIB 100 proof
- Black Ridge small batch
- Old Grand-dad 114
- wathen's single barrel 94 proof no age statement, barrel 7553 bottled march 2014
- heaven hill BIB 6 yr 100 proof
- col Taylor rye BIB 100 proof
- rittenhouse rye 100 proof
- Johnny drum private stock 101 proof
With the exception of the OGD 114 and possibly the rittenhouse I don't think any of the others are in NC or if they are, are quite limited. Was disappointed that they were wiped clean of weller, rock hill, and all other buffalo trace products basically including blantons. They said they their high end stuff was picked over during the derby and they are out of their allotment for the time being.
coming from NC, the selection was frankly overwhelming. The sales folks were great. My only possible regret is the wathen's, I did more research after the fact and have read mixed reviews; the bourbon being good but the lack of info about the source being of concern.
Have not broken into anything new except for the heaven hill BiB yet. Very smooth, great bargain.