Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Select Tennessee Whiskey

We arrived in Nashville at dusk after taking a 4.5 hour off-the-beaten-path drive from Birmingham, Alabama, which we had driven after walking all around Birmingham for a couple hours exploring the city that looks like it still exists in 1967.  Anyway, we were tired, hungry, and ready to start exploring another city.  After relaxing in our hip, modern, worth-your-visit boutique Hotel Indigo in downtown Nashville for an hour or so, drinking some wine we had purchased in New Orleans just in case everything was closed in Birmingham when we arrived there the night before (always thinking ahead…).

Dinner was an absolute success that evening at Merchant’s, and we were so full and tired afterwards that we really just wanted to have a glass of wine in our room (since it was so nice and spacious) and go to bed early.  We decided to walk a little hoping to stumble upon a liquor store.  We walked and walked and walked for at least an hour and found absolutely nothing.  We definitely weren’t in New Orleans any longer!  What a lesson learned that evening.  There is nowhere to buy alcohol in downtown Nashville.

The next day, during a 6 hour walk-a-thon of the city, we finally stumbled upon Midtown Wine and Spirits (1610 Church Street).  It felt like a celebratory moment!  We just like to have a bottle of wine in the room with us.  Is that crazy?

We walked in and there was a Jack Daniel’s display of single barrel whiskey.  We had just learned all about single barrel whiskey from Chris McMillian at Bar UnCommon in New Orleans and I suggested we buy a bottle.  Kevin was somewhat interested, but then, you have to pack it, so it is definitely a commitment with airline luggage weight restrictions.

And then… Kevin saw the date this whiskey was bottled: 10.11.2010.  That’s his birthday.  We had to get it.

This whiskey is especially cool because the distinguished palates of Midtown Wine and Spirits actually go to Jack Daniel’s every year and taste some of the single barrels that have not been mixed with other barrels (hence the name “Single Barrel”).  They decide which one they like most and Jack Daniel’s bottles the entire barrel for them to sell at their store.  

The box informs us that “the barrels chosen for single barrel come from the uppermost floors of the barrelhouses that dot the the hills surrounding the distillery.  The extremes in temperature these floors experience during the year result in barrels which yield whiskey of uncommon smoothness, aroma, and flavor with notes of vanilla, toasted oak, and caramel.  Once chosen, the whiskey is bottled a single barrel at a time, never mixing it with whiskey from other barrels.”

We still haven’t opened it.  This one is for special occasions.