Orphan Barrel Rhetoric 25 Year Old Bourbon

The last Rhetoric Orphan Barrel!

Orphan Barrel Whiskey distillery has a special mission: finding the rarest, the most exclusive and the ritziest barrels of Whiskey possible, scouring the backs of warehouses and distilleries for lost and forgotten stories. Such treasures are hand-bottled in Tullahoma, Tennessee, and handled with care. The thing is, once they’re gone, they’re gone eternally. The Rhetoric line of progressively aged Bourbons brings older, more opulent and limited expression each year.

In 2018, Diageo released the last Rhetoric installment, a high-class and almost forgotten expression found in old Stitzel-Weller warehouses while the Bourbon was actually made at Bernheim Distillery quarter of a century ago, somewhere between 1990 and 1993 – you know, when everything was more colorful, and movies were superhero-free. Why is this expression the last one? Because Bourbon stops peaking around that age as the tannins begin to dominate the character. The final Rhetoric is being bottled at 91 proof and the mash bill is 86% corn, 8% barley, and 6% rye. Quite low-rye Bourbon, but still exciting and extremely oak-forward.