A couple months ago, I was asked if I wanted to join a Facebook Bourbon Group that specializes in procuring barrel picks. Members get to buy bottles. After trying a few samples of their recent picks, I opted to join simply to get my hands on the Starlight Double Oaked Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey French Oak (yes, all that is part of the name from what I can tell). I found Starlight on the internet and saw several of their other offerings, but couldn’t find a regular release equivalent to this bottle, so it’s mostly a mystery to me.
Starlight Distillery is located in Borden, Indiana, about half an hour northwest of Louisville, Kentucky. They use both a 3-grain and a 4-gran mashbill…and I have no idea which is used here. Double Oaked usually means the contents of a barrel are emptied into another after a certain time period, then the whiskey is aged several more years in the “fresh” barrel. French Oak is commonly used as flavoring staves inside whiskey barrels, but it could be that the second barrel used here was all French Oak. What I do know…this bourbon was aged 9-1/2 years and is bottled at 120.1 proof (60.05% ABV).
The wax keeping the cork in place on this was truly ugly and misshapen, but it did cut through pretty easily with a pocket knife and then the cork came right out. The Starlight Double Oaked was a dark amber with tons of red in it. When I sniffed this initially in a Glencairn glass, the alcohol vapors were so concentrated it was hard to get anything but a punch in the nose. For this review, I used the “Neat Glass” which allows more of the vapors to get out through its wider mouth…then I could pick up on tons and tons of oak aroma. Behind that was a dark brown sugar and dark fruit sweetness, along with a mild vanilla. The 120 proof level really makes the first sip more pure fire than anything else. There was a little brown sugar on the tip of my tongue before it devolved into molten lava and a nice cinnamon burn on the finish, but if you’re going to sip this one neat, give yourself a few sips to acclimate your palate before rendering a judgement. After that acclimatization period, you might just pick up on a very, very oaky bourbon, wrapped in a cherry and brown sugar sweetness and finishing with more baking spices than just cinnamon.
This stuff is really great and it’s a shame it will be difficult, if not impossible, to get more…but that’s one of the beautiful things about these groups and clubs, too, is getting to try new and rare items.m
