If you are a whiskey or rum connoisseur, get ready to smile. That’s because one of America’s original independent whiskey and rum blenders, Barrell Craft Spirits (BCS), is poised to start turning out more batches than ever of their award-winning bottles.
Founded in 2013 by Joe Beatrice in Louisville, Ky, Barrell Craft Spirits set out from day one to reimagine what a modern-day whiskey brand could be. Taking his inspiration from Scotland, where blenders have woven together the liquid from different barrels to create their wholly unique bottlings for centuries, he eschewed from distilling. Instead, BCS would source barrels of finished product from a wide swath of distillers and develop their products.
Their approach, one that they still follow today, worked. In 2017, they took home the award for Best Bourbon at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition with their Barrell Bourbon Batch 011. That got drinkers’ attention, and their expertly blended bottles have quietly risen to the forefront of the bourbon boom, even though most of the drinking public still doesn’t know who they are.
BCS has become known for continually releasing different cask-strength bottlings that quickly sell out, each different from the one before or after. You could easily fill the back bar of your favorite watering hole and have cases of bottles to spare with the hundreds of releases they have made over the last decade.
Working in whiskey, bourbon, rye, and rum, the team at BCS is known for its ready embrace of different blends and finishes. Their Barrell Tale of Two Islands Rum uses Jamaican pot still rum and is aged in Scottish Islay whisky casks. It’s Barrell New Year 2023 Bourbon is a blend of 5,6,7,8, and 10-year-old straight bourbons from Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Wyoming, New York, Texas, and Maryland.
Many of their releases are limited editions due to the nature of their operation. By not distilling their base liquids, they work with whatever barrels Beatrice and his team deem worthy. Space constraints pinched their ability to blend and age products as demand grew, and they expanded their distribution footprint across the country.
Its new 31,000 square-foot facility in Jeffersonville, IN, just across the Ohio River from Louisville, is designed to handle their rapid growth. It has eight blending tanks with 64,000 gallons of capacity, allowing BCS to increase its annual blending capacity by over 500%. They will also have new bottling lines that can put out one million bottles annually. The facility will support their current brands and allow them to drop even more fresh and new releases. To ensure they have enough room for all their barrels, they also recently acquired a historic 18,000-barrel rickhouse just minutes from their new facility.
“We’re thrilled to unveil our new state of the art blending facility and to continue our 10-year legacy of developing sought-after award-winning blends that push the boundaries of American whiskey,” said BCS Founder Joe Beatrice.
As BCS settles into its new facility, its premium bottles will surely start appearing on more shelves nationwide. That is only good news for all lovers of fine spirits and will put the Barrell even more into the forefront of drinkers’ minds.
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