Barrell Craft Spirits Founder Joe Beatrice goal was to create an exceptional, forward thinking and innovative whiskey company whose sole focus is finding the finest barrels in the country (and outside of it!) and letting his talented team blend those barrels to immensely flavorful, unparalleled and most unique effect. Mission accomplished. But they’re only getting started!
Countless awards have followed in the past dozen years and many of my favorite and most respected enthusiasts and experts in the industry seem to agree; Barrell Craft Spirits is head and shoulders above all and the leading blenders in the United States. Nobody does blending quite like BCS.
Having hosted Joe and his wife at my Warren Bar in the Warren Whiskey Library I was able to pick his brain about all things bourbon and blending and was fascinated to listen to him discuss leaving his successful previous career to purse his passion for whiskey making, flavor creation and finding the best team of tasters and barrels of whiskey for his brand.
After hosting a second dinner experience with them at Warren and discussing my own interest and fascination for blending, Joe and I had lunch in West Palm and he invited me up to meet his talented team and see if we could replicate what I’ve created on my own with the BCS team at their incredible, state of the art facility in Kentucky.
Once there, I was able to meet his blender, Nic, and his operations director, Tripp, and take a tour of this unique and cavernous facility. From the barrels to the new 6 and 10 thousand gallon mixing tanks to the bottling line it struck me there was one common denominator to it all: only the best of everything will do.
In the lab, Tripp and Nic were able to take my blend to the next level sourcing barrels that replicated my ingredients and flavor profile. A couple of tweaks to the finish and soon the first prototype of “Old Fitzpatrick’s Famous Four Grain” was finished. Wow.
In my 15 years of tasting others on literally hundreds (thousands?) of whiskies and gauging their reactions to different tastes and complementary flavors I finally decided to create a whiskey on my own that would appeal to both bourbon newbies and more seasoned drinkers of the spirit. With the help of the expert team at BCS I believe that I just may have.
I love having the platform at Warren to be able to share my passion of all things brown spirits and talking about whiskey with fellow enthusiasts and introducing newbies to this incredible spirit.
But I kind of like actually making some just as much!
Stay tuned.
