Ancient Ancient Age 10 Year or “Triple A” as it is affectionately known, is a great example of one of the benefits of working in Kentucky: this cult classic is only available in Kentucky. The beneficent producer, Buffalo Trace (and before 1999 they were popularly known as the Ancient Age Distillery, after this flagship brand) is so kind as to allow me to select this as a single barrel. This has to be one of the best whiskey deals in the world: ten years, a single barrel, a classic name, for about 20 bucks.

Price: $17.99

Our 17th barrel, released in June 2010, of Buffalo Trace is perhaps the meanest yet. Straight up, the whiskey is firm, brawny and hot, full of classic corn-oak with vanilla confection. But hit it with a generous splash of water—and I should add, it's hard to believe this is just 90 proof; the way it requires water to open up, it drinks like 100+ proof—and a magical dram opens up of pungent, wonderful rye spice against vanilla corn earth. It is a whole 'nother whiskey with water, turning fat and rich, full-bodied and smooth, with an almost idealized balance of corn, oak barrel and rye grain, potent and luscious and quite intense throughout. Long story short: this is one mother of a 90 proof whiskey. The spice comes out hugely on the finish with maximum length and detail. Never has a Buffalo Trace so improved with water. The water carries it from a BT also-ran to a Hall of Famer. Probably it would drink like hell on the rocks.

Price: $20.99

It's great fun working with Buffalo Trace to develop these Private Barrel "handles." With Charter 101, I want to bring our customers a high-proof, high-value whiskey, and it doesn't get much better than a half a gallon of 101 proof single barrel rye mash goodness. Off the still, Charter 101 is the same juice as Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, and George T. Stagg. It is younger than any of these, and stronger than the first two. This barrel offers a mellow nose corn, earth and rye and a similar palate with rather more intensity, with particular rye in the finish. This makes a great house Bourbon or foundation for your daily Manhattan. Tasted straight up it has some serious thump, and a little water helps release additional flavor.

Price: $35.99

Welcome to our first Private Barrel with Heaven Hill Distillery. Heaven Hill has been on a tear of late with some eye-opening (eye-watering!) bottlings, but Elijah Craig 18 has been a mainstay of the Bourbon scene for many years. It was great fun to get inside Heaven Hill's rye mash recipe and taste some barrels. This one impressed with it's fine balance of rye and corn, but the rye comes out slightly on top. I'm finding that these older Heaven Hills—distilled at their original Bardstown location, which burned down in 1996—can be quite spicy whiskeys. Bring 'em on!

Price: $41.99

As you likely know, Four Roses produces ten different Bourbons off their stills. To accomplish this, they using two grain bills--OE, at 20% rye, and OB at 35% rye--and five yeasts--K, F, O, Q, and V. After maturation in their unique single-story warehouses, these ten recipes yield a wide range of flavor, which Four Roses usually vats together to produce their various Bourbons. Now, for the first time, you can taste these Bourbons in single barrel format, straight from the barrel, exploring the flavor of one yeast strain at a time using both grain bills. Eventually, we will offer all ten whiskeys. Check back for future releases.

Price: $49.99

As you likely know, Four Roses produces ten different Bourbons off their stills. To accomplish this, they using two grain bills--OE, at 20% rye, and OB at 35% rye--and five yeasts--K, F, O, Q, and V. After maturation in their unique single-story warehouses, these ten recipes yield a wide range of flavor, which Four Roses usually vats together to produce their various Bourbons. Now, for the first time, you can taste these Bourbons in single barrel format, straight from the barrel, exploring the flavor of one yeast strain at a time using both grain bills. Eventually, we will offer all ten whiskeys. Check back for future releases.

Price: $49.99

I have been waiting for this whiskey a long time, ever since meeting up with Four Roses' ten recipes at a landmark tasting in the quality control lab in January, 2007. Along with K yeast, Four Roses V yeast functions as their take on more or less classic Bourbon flavor. The other yeasts such as Q and F and, to a lesser extent, O yeast, generate striking, even unusual flavors that add color and accent to a blend. But V and K are the core of the program, and required reading for any Four Roses fan. Furthermore, V yeast is the original yeast at Four Roses; the other four were added in the early 1970s. So the two V whiskeys are a glimpse into history, with Four Roses flavor circa 1943, when Seagrams bought the distillery.

Price: $49.99

As you likely know, Four Roses produces ten different Bourbons off their stills. To accomplish this, they using two grain bills--OE, at 20% rye, and OB at 35% rye--and five yeasts--K, F, O, Q, and V. After maturation in their unique single-story warehouses, these ten recipes yield a wide range of flavor, which Four Roses usually vats together to produce their various Bourbons. Now, for the first time, you can taste these Bourbons in single barrel format, straight from the barrel, exploring the flavor of one yeast strain at a time using both grain bills. Eventually, we will offer all ten whiskeys. Check back for future releases.

Price: $49.99

How is this barrel strength Bourbon only 102.6º proof? It's actually not uncommon for the barrels in Four Roses' warehouses to clock in at lower proofs like this. For starters, Four Roses fills the barrels at 120º, rather than the legal maximum and industry standard of 125º. Furthermore, unique to Four Roses in the Bourbon industry is their use of single story warehouses. At about 25 feet tall, these warehouses do not generate the kind of heat in upper stories that other Bourbon warehouses attain, heat which helps elevate the alcohol in such barrel strength 120º+ proof whiskeys as Bookers or George T. Stagg. The 2008 and 2009 releases of Four Roses Mariage have been 107.8º and 109.6º, respectively. The beauty of this low proof is that you can drink these silky Bourbons with very little or no water, as both my V yeast Bourbons are exceptionally approachable straight from the bottle...or the barrel!

Price: $49.99

Four Roses Single Barrel was released in Kentucky in 2004. Like a shot across the bow of the other distilleries, it announced that after an absence of over 50 years, one of America's greatest Bourbons was returned with a vengeance. I worked closely with Four Roses to bring out a privately selected barrel, resulting in a Party Source Private Barrel—the first such venture for Four Roses—in May, 2007.

Price: $31.99

Old Weller Antique 107 is the higher proof iteration of the venerable Weller label. This grand old name in Bourbon harks back to the famed Stitzel-Weller distillery in Louisville, the distillery formerly run by Pappy Van Winkle, bane of chemists and home to one of the richest of all Bourbon traditions. Mr. Van Winkle can be considered the prime mover of the wheated tradition that exists today in such brands as Maker's Mark, Old Fitzgerald, and Rebel Yell. The Van Winkle whiskies and all the Weller labels are the direct descendants of this tradition, and today are bottled by Buffalo Trace. BT bottles their wheated recipe at various ages and proofs, and for price and performance, this 107 one has to be one of the best deals in all Kentucky. If other wheated Bourbons have seemed a bit lightish to you, try my Weller 107, the full-custom, single barrel musclecar of the wheated category.

Price: $19.99

When I came to The Party Source in 2001, we had a mere three ryes. Today, this category has undergone a most beautiful renaissance, with 23-year-olds standing cheek to jowl with such young whiskeys as this lovely Sazaerc. (Try a Party Source DrinkFind search on "rye whiskey" and see what you come up with.) Buffalo Trace launched this rye in the antique bottle in 2004, and it quickly rose to prominence as perhaps the definitive example of the flavor of distilled rye grain. If you want to know what rye tastes like, pick up a bottle of Sazerac. End of discussion. No other Kentucky rye whiskey offers such a white-knuckled, eye-watering thrill ride of ribald rye flavor.  You could crack a tooth on this rye, such is the clarity and crispness of its über-spicy rye grain flavor. It is surely one of the great whiskeys of modern times, considering that Buffalo Trace only began selling it at this young age in  2004. Our private barrel only ups the ante, as I select only the most transparent, transcendant barrels. As a representative of America's first whiskey, Sazerac ought to be on the back of very single bar in the nation. It is that good, and that essential to understanding rye whiskey.

Price: $26.99

No. 3665 illustrates why unfiltered whiskeys should, with rare exceptions, be drunk with a bit of water. The straight nose shows a mellow, nutty, even slightly oxidized character; it's a pleasant aroma. But add a little water and it explodes into shimmering rye-violet floral multi-hued fruit basket, topped with a dollop of toasty vanilla oak. The shift from straight to watered is astounding, and I feel sorry for someone who can't bear the thought of taking water in their whiskey and will never inhale this. It doesn't dilute the flavor, it completes it.

Price: $71.99

This 13 year shows a deft hand in the rye department, bringing big but not imbalanced rye quickly in the palate. Texturally it is rich but not huge, with a hint of sweetness at the entry, but that rye surge quickly balances the budget. Very nice Bourbon, sophisticated, and dangerously drinkable with that tangy clove-black pepper-spearmint rye action.

Price: $71.99

No. 3701 has much in common with the other two 13s—layers of aroma, fine balance, ripe fulsome flavor—but it also has more oak. From the straight nose to the fruit-spice finish, an attractive drying oak presence persists with bold authority. If you like a bit more oak in your whiskey, go for 3701. But I must stress, this oak thing is relative to the other two Willett 13s. Compared to most oak-strong Bourbons, 3701 is a dew-dappled rosebud.

Price: $71.99

A dram like this fat piece of corn squeezin's suggests that age is required for complexity but not necessarily "smoothness." This young Bourbon has plenty of velvety touch, yet lacks in particular the complex, emergent rye grain notes of an older whiskey. That said it is quite well done, given the age, and moreover is a lot of fun to drink, with it's big, bold, soft body and gristy corn. Surely bottling without chill-filtration has preserved the best parts of this whiskey; I have to imagine that chill-filtration and 90 proof bottling would strip all the guts out of it. Mostly, it's a chance to play with barrel proof at an affordable price.

Price: $27.99

Surely one of the blessings of a young whiskey is that the oak barrel will never dominate it. That's the case here, as the straight nose shows fresh cooked corn, minty rye and minimal oak barrel aromas. Water brings out a touch of drying oak, along with juicy fruits and more rye. The mouth is medium-full, ripe and clean with considerable depth. It's well-balanced between corn, oak, rye and spice, and the finish shows excellent length. This whiskey and the three-year Willett suggest to me that young Bourbon is better than we realize, when bottled purely and without filtration.

Price: $36.99

Once some water gets added, this whiskey shows a savory wholeness of corn kernel, nougat, oak, earth and generous, carefully tuned rye. It is well-put-together, with an oily straight nose but thereafter a fine balance. The palate entry is particularly nice, with a rich nougat character that slowly give way to rye grain. A medium-full body leads to a dryish though not oaky-tannic finish. The six-year and five-year have much in common, including a similar overall body and elegant corn-rye balance, but the six is rather more evolved.

Price: $39.99

A little extra water helps this strong whiskey, especially the nose—a fairly classic, closely joined affair with corn pudding, cocoa, clean oak, vanilla, rye-spicy fruit. These all return in the mouth, a shimmering, dryish, fresh, medium-full-bodied spread of nicely spiced blue fruit Bourbon. The balance between these flavors is close, teetering back and forth in an almost maddening fashion. Barrel #374 is a very nice whiskey, a dancer not a bruiser. Compared to Willett eight year #375 it is perhaps a bit fuller-bodied and richer, also more direct and less...mysterious.

Price: $47.99

One reads of "smooth" or "seamless" flavor. And then there is this eight-year-old Bourbon, constructed, so it seems, without even the mortar of oak between expertly fitted, hand-hewn blocks of flavor. Everything is so carefully, confidently balanced. Pity that some drinkers looking for glaring, blockbuster flavors might perceive some lack. In fact, most every desirable Bourbon flavor is here—but subtly so.

Price: $47.99