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Seelbach's Private Reserve Amburana Finished Bourbon 110.6 Proof Batch 004.2
Regular price
$139.99
Sale
Age: 9 Years & 8-months
Finishing Barrel: 5-Days Second use Amburana Barrel
Mash Bill: 99/1 Corn/Malted Barley
Source: MGPi
Proof: 110.6 Proof; Barrel Strength
Bottle Count: 336 bottles
Tasting Notes: Fresh sliced pears, coffee beans and baking spice. It's a great balance of spice. The classic Amburana notes of cinnamon and dark tobacco are there. But, they're subtle and more secondary notes. The palate burst with black pepper and dried apples. It's cherry tootsie pop and cinnamon roll with vanilla icing. Finish and long and dry. The dried fruit sweetens quickly changes to roasted peppercorns and cigar box.
Short Story: After an overwhelming success of our first Amburana we went back for more. I'm biased, but I think it's the best blend we have done to date. This time the barrels were a little older and the finish slightly shorter. More on that below. Seelbach's adage is "we create blends that no one asked for or knew they wanted." We pride ourselves on being the first to discover new finishing combinations. After tasting multiple iterations of Amburana finishes, we knew this was one we had to try.
Long Story: Here's how we got started the first time with the Amburana blend. On paper, this is the simplest Seelbach's Private Reserve to date. When we got into the actual blend it became much more complicated. I first tasted an Amburana finish about two years ago. When selecting private barrels the distillery teased a new project. They let us sample their Amburana finished bourbon. It was so different I couldn't get it out of my head! Since then, we've selected 6+ Amburana barrels at Seelbach's. That's when I decided I wanted to give our own blend a shot.
Most of the barrels I've had in the past were 5-years or younger. I wanted to see how the Amburana would interact with older bourbon. I tracked down some 9-year MGPi bourbon barrels. They're from the 99/1 Corn/Malted Barley mash bill. This mash bill is fruit forwards with lots of dried cherry, stewed apples and brighter notes. It lacked spice. This made it a perfect pairing for the cinnamon and cigar tobacco heavy Amburana barrels. There's is one problem with Amburana finishes. To me, they're the heavily peated Scotch of the Bourbon world. Amburana can dominate a profile.
With all that, I set out to blend the oldest, balanced, crowd pleasing Amburana blend. The base blend was the easy part. I chose two barrels from the 9-year lot. It married nicely and set the perfect foundation. Next was the finish. There were two 60L Amburana barrels to work with. After running tests with 1L of bourbon, I thought I may pull the barrel after a day. Because of the surface area decreases when you add 60L of bourbon it rested for 5-days on Batch 2. Becuase this was a shorter finish and a second use cask the Amburana is still subtle. Subtle can be a relative term when referring to Amburana though!
The final phase was blending the unfinished bourbon with the finished. At around 80/20 Finished/Unfinished we found the sweet spot! It was this perfect balance. It was everything I love in an Amburana finish but subtle and nuanced.
Age: 9 Years & 8-months
Finishing Barrel: 5-Days Second use Amburana Barrel
Mash Bill: 99/1 Corn/Malted Barley
Source: MGPi
Proof: 110.6 Proof; Barrel Strength
Bottle Count: 336 bottles
Tasting Notes: Fresh sliced pears, coffee beans and baking spice. It's a great balance of spice. The classic Amburana notes of cinnamon and dark tobacco are there. But, they're subtle and more secondary notes. The palate burst with black pepper and dried apples. It's cherry tootsie pop and cinnamon roll with vanilla icing. Finish and long and dry. The dried fruit sweetens quickly changes to roasted peppercorns and cigar box.
Short Story: After an overwhelming success of our first Amburana we went back for more. I'm biased, but I think it's the best blend we have done to date. This time the barrels were a little older and the finish slightly shorter. More on that below. Seelbach's adage is "we create blends that no one asked for or knew they wanted." We pride ourselves on being the first to discover new finishing combinations. After tasting multiple iterations of Amburana finishes, we knew this was one we had to try.
Long Story: Here's how we got started the first time with the Amburana blend. On paper, this is the simplest Seelbach's Private Reserve to date. When we got into the actual blend it became much more complicated. I first tasted an Amburana finish about two years ago. When selecting private barrels the distillery teased a new project. They let us sample their Amburana finished bourbon. It was so different I couldn't get it out of my head! Since then, we've selected 6+ Amburana barrels at Seelbach's. That's when I decided I wanted to give our own blend a shot.
Most of the barrels I've had in the past were 5-years or younger. I wanted to see how the Amburana would interact with older bourbon. I tracked down some 9-year MGPi bourbon barrels. They're from the 99/1 Corn/Malted Barley mash bill. This mash bill is fruit forwards with lots of dried cherry, stewed apples and brighter notes. It lacked spice. This made it a perfect pairing for the cinnamon and cigar tobacco heavy Amburana barrels. There's is one problem with Amburana finishes. To me, they're the heavily peated Scotch of the Bourbon world. Amburana can dominate a profile.
With all that, I set out to blend the oldest, balanced, crowd pleasing Amburana blend. The base blend was the easy part. I chose two barrels from the 9-year lot. It married nicely and set the perfect foundation. Next was the finish. There were two 60L Amburana barrels to work with. After running tests with 1L of bourbon, I thought I may pull the barrel after a day. Because of the surface area decreases when you add 60L of bourbon it rested for 5-days on Batch 2. Becuase this was a shorter finish and a second use cask the Amburana is still subtle. Subtle can be a relative term when referring to Amburana though!
The final phase was blending the unfinished bourbon with the finished. At around 80/20 Finished/Unfinished we found the sweet spot! It was this perfect balance. It was everything I love in an Amburana finish but subtle and nuanced.
