Jan. 26: Drammers Las Vegas with Broken Barrel's Founder Seth Benhaim...
Hello Vegas Drammers!
We’re thrilled to welcome you to a special in person tasting on January 26th at 6pm, where we will welcome the founder of Broken Barrel Co., Seth Benhaim. There’s a fun story to how this event came about actually — at our last Drammers Vegas tasting, one of our members (Steve Overlay) mentioned he was a big fan of Broken Barrel and could we do something with them, so we messaged Seth on the spot, and it turned out he would be in Vegas in January. So we set it up, and Steve even offered to host — making our first event in Henderson, something we’ve been wanting to do for a while now already! Steve’s address is: 2601 Grey Stone Rd, Henderson 89074.
So here’s the plan, we’ve got a 2 hour window with Seth from 6-8pm, and he’ll walk us through what they do. In a nutshell, as the company name suggests they break barrels (literally with an axe) and jam the barrel staves in otherwise inert holding tanks to finish bourbons and ryes in all sorts of unusual ways. They mostly do this from their facility in Los Angeles, and our LA chapter had the pleasure of visiting a year or so ago and learning all about their operation. As for the whiskey itself, while they don’t have their own distillery, they essentially partnered with the launch of the Owensboro Distilling Co., so that Broken Barrel launched with the first-ever bourbon release from the distillery (at the time just a 9 month old!) in 2017 and has been growing alongside that company.
In any case, Seth is bringing 5 expressions that we’ll taste, and after he has to leave at approx. 8pm, we’ll break out 4 recent club barrel picks of rum, and brown rice whiskey and other fun stuff you can try. Here’s the lineup of the 5 expressions of Broken Barrel that we’ll be tasting:
Broken Barrel Rye
Broken Barrel Cask Strength Bourbon
a Single Barrel Select of Broken Barrel Bourbon,
Their limited edition Luciferous Single Malt, and
Their Honey Smoke Reserva, which we believe is a limited edition as well.
Then after Seth has to leave, we’ll try four recent Drammers single barrels:
Atelier Vie - RIZ Louisiana Whiskey - Experimental Brown Rice Single Cask. This is truly a one-of-a-kind barrel, the first experimental brown rice whiskey made by Jedd, the founder at the Atelier Vie distillery in New Orleans. His regular white rice RIZ New Orleans Whiskey is one of his best sellers, and we had a chance to try this, the only barrel of brown rice whiskey he’s ever made, when we visited the distillery last year. We were blown away and immediately asked if we could have it as a Drammers-exclusive. It was aged 3 years and 7 months and bottled at cask strength of 61.52% abv. Btw, the angels share was quite high — the barrel only yielded 72 bottles.
Rolling Fork Brazilian Rum. A Brazilian rum aged 12 years, distilled at the Epris distillery and bottled by the independent bottling group Rolling Fork. And, importantly, it was aged for part of those 12 years in an Amburana cask. If you’ve tried any bourbons finished in Amburana, they bring rich, bbq sauce notes and are often overpowering — sometimes too much of a good thing. So, the Rolling Fork team didn’t finish this rum in an Amburana cask, rather they matured it partially in an amburana cask, but then tempered that by having the end of its maturation in an ex-bourbon cask. , which is definitely a good thing. Bottled at cask strength of 55.05% abv.
Bardstown Bourbon Co. - Single Barrel Bourbon. This single barrel just arrived, part of the launch of the first-ever single barrel program from Bardstown Bourbon Co. They selected only 100 barrels of their Origins profile (60% corn, 36% rye, 4% malted barley), all aged 6 years, for the entire US, and it only yielded a surprisingly low 138 bottles. Bottled at cask strength exclusively for members of Drammers Club.
Green River - Single Barrel KY Straight Bourbon. This single barrel also just arrived from Bardstown’s sister distillery (Bardstown acquired the historic distillery in 2022 and both launched their single barrel programs at the end of 2023, though reportedly only something like 40 barrels were released as part of their inaugural year). This was also aged 6 years, but it is so different, with big eucalpytus / minty notes going into the finish. It is technically “Full Proof” - 59.5% abv / 119 proof (in other words, close to cask strength, but diluted slightly so they don’t have to submit TTB labels for approval for each barrel). Damn fine bourbon. The barrel yielded 156 bottles. We're confirming, but we believe the mashbill is 70% Corn, 21% Rye, 9% Malted Barley).
We hope you can join us! Bob will be running point on this as usual, though sadly Charlie will be hosting an event simultaneously with the Kilchoman team in Seattle (maybe we can all jump on Facetime for a minute so the two chapters can say hello to one another!). We’ll order in light food (likely Capriotti’s) and as always we strongly recommend arranging a ride home from the event. Please let us know if you have any questions!
Cheers,
Charlie, Bob and Drammers Club