Anyone have experience picking OF single barrel?

[lrochau]

Curious if anyone has experience picking an OF barrel?  There is a liquor store in my state that has an OF pick that claimed to not have been given an age statement when picked.  Now store manager making claim that he was told it was probably somewhere between 12 and 15 years old but no guarantees.....  seems odd, every barrel pick I've been apart of you know every stat on that thing and thought on OF tour they said barrels were 2-4 years old?  Seems like a crazy claim and being it was posted in a public forum pushing the product, wanted to dig a little.

[0895]

Anything that old recently would probably have gone into birthday bourbon or other products.

 

If it's in the newer single barrel bottle (not the old square rectangle type) then it is likely 4yrs & some change.

 

That remains one of my biggest problems with Old Forester.  They charge a premium for their 4ish year old single barrel product ($40-50).

I would imagine your local is having some issues selling the bottles.

They tend to linger around for a bit, especially if the store is not sampling them out to customers.

 

Compare to Four Roses single barrel (6-8 years) at $35 ish in my area and the OF is a hard sell on paper.

[lrochau]

My thoughts exactly....   good luck to them and thier massive inventory of that stuff just hope people buy for taste and not fall for bait.  Same manager claiming the 12 - 15 age also says he works with the distilleries to get a certain taste profile for his picks to take them "next level".  Joke.

[clearmoon247]

Ive had a couple of picks from OF. You are better off with a 1920 or Signature 

[EarthQuake]

12 hours ago, lrochau said:

Curious if anyone has experience picking an OF barrel?  There is a liquor store in my state that has an OF pick that claimed to not have been given an age statement when picked.  Now store manager making claim that he was told it was probably somewhere between 12 and 15 years old but no guarantees.....  seems odd, every barrel pick I've been apart of you know every stat on that thing and thought on OF tour they said barrels were 2-4 years old?  Seems like a crazy claim and being it was posted in a public forum pushing the product, wanted to dig a little.

Since you're in Davenport, can you tell me which store had the OF pick with the dubious age info? I think I read something similar about an OF pick in the ~13 year range at a store in Cedar Rapids. So I'm curious to know if this is the same store / manager.

 

OF single barrel is a Straight Bourbon without an age statement, which means it has to be at minimum years old. So it's possible the person on the tour did not know what they were talking about. But I've heard the single barrels are generally 4-6 years old.

Edited November 10, 2019 by EarthQuake

[lrochau]

It was the Cedar Rapids store.....    feels like a desperate attempt to move inventory.  Maybe I'm being a hardo about this but of you make a claim that you OF pick is 12 to 15 years old on a public forum pushing your product, have some proof.

[PhantomLamb]

Odd.  I bought a SiB from the distillery in Louisville and they assured me it was 8-9 years old.  Maybe I'm off?

[Arkady]

I've made a few picks of Old Forester single barrel. They were all good, but not a one of them tasted like it was a decade old.

[flahute]

As Earthquake said, OFSiB picks tend to be 4-5 years old. I’ve done two picks in the past couple years and both are great. However, I’d never buy one I didn’t pick myself or try first. 
 

Remember that OF makes a big deal about they heat cycle their warehouses so they claim to get more exchanges of whiskey soaking into the wood and then coming back out. Lazy tour guides and reps (who are trying to sell product) like to claim that the product ages twice as fast so I can totally see someone on the retail end saying it’s like an 8-9 yr old whiskey and after a while everyone forgets the “like” part of that claim and just goes with a fake age. 
 

Does heat cycling work? Yes to an extent. It’s not aging twice as fast however. Remember that Nancy will tell us how you just can cheat time because the oxidative process that sheds the compounds that contain bad flavors simply needs that time. What OF’s process does is introduce different flavors early in the process. It’s not necessarily better, just different. I think OF tastes better at 4-5 yrs than most but on the flip side they can get overoaked very quickly which is what some people don’t like about OFBB at 12yrs. 

[PhantomLamb]

1 hour ago, flahute said:

As Earthquake said, OFSiB picks tend to be 4-5 years old. I’ve done two picks in the past couple years and both are great. However, I’d never buy one I didn’t pick myself or try first. 
 

Remember that OF makes a big deal about they heat cycle their warehouses so they claim to get more exchanges of whiskey soaking into the wood and then coming back out. Lazy tour guides and reps (who are trying to sell product) like to claim that the product ages twice as fast so I can totally see someone on the retail end saying it’s like an 8-9 yr old whiskey and after a while everyone forgets the “like” part of that claim and just goes with a fake age. 
 

Does heat cycling work? Yes to an extent. It’s not aging twice as fast however. Remember that Nancy will tell us how you just can cheat time because the oxidative process that sheds the compounds that contain bad flavors simply needs that time. What OF’s process does is introduce different flavors early in the process. It’s not necessarily better, just different. I think OF tastes better at 4-5 yrs than most but on the flip side they can get overoaked very quickly which is what some people don’t like about OFBB at 12yrs. 

That makes complete sense, appreciate the feedback.  I think I picked it up for $48ish and it's fantastic.  So 4-5 years or 8-9, it's a solid pour, but I agree, kind of sketchy to use the "aged twice as fast" marketing scheme, not cool.

[PaulO]

Sometimes a retailer would have the empty barrel in the store.  You could check the barrel head for dates.  A barrel number should be enough to get the same information from the distillery.