Barrel proof of Rare Breed

[giobi]

Wild Turkey lists the proof of Rare Breed as varying between 109.5 and 111. The Bourbon Boys up here in Beantown have been liquor stores in the New England area and every bottle we have found in the last 3 years has consistently been 108.4 (neither more nor less).

Now either Jimmy Russel is a true magician who can nail the proof to a decimal point in all his barrels or something strange is happening. What has been the experience of other board members re Rare Breed proof? <font color="black"> </font>

[Barrel_Proof]

giobi -- There is a difference between a barrel proof batch of bourbon and a single barrel bourbon. Rare Breed is NOT a single barrel bourbon. Rather, it is produced in batches that are created from admixtures of various barrels. WT will batch up a bunch of barrels to create (and recreate) the RB profile. WT is NOT saying that the whiskey leaving every barrel headed for New England was exactly 108.4 proof. My bottle is from Batch No. W-T-01-99 and--guess what--it, too, is 108.4 proof.

[Paradox]

Yup, and I think the admixtures of various barrels come from 6, 8 and 12 year aged bourbon for Rare Breed. I've got an old bottle of Rare Breed from 1997 with the old label, and even its proof is almost the same as now, 108.6 proof...

[cowdery]

To just add on to what the others are saying, the stainless steel tank in which this combining of barrels takes place holds maybe thousands of gallons. In other words, they're probably bottling up a small brand like Rare Breed maybe as seldom as once a year, so expect to see that proof until the next batch comes through the pipeline.

The label gives a range rather than a specific proof so they can register the label once for legal purposes, which is a costly and time consuming process.