Kentucky Boy Is a Superb Blend of 3 Coveted Bourbons

Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

What would happen if you tried making a blend of some of the most collectible bottles you can find—I’m thinking Pappy 15, Michter’s 20, and Boss Hog. On second thought, that seems like an expensive experiment to undertake with uncertain results, but the folks at Brown-Forman decided to try something similar. The new Kentucky Boy bourbon combines three of the company’s most revered whiskeys—Birthday Bourbon, King of Kentucky, and Woodford Reserve Double Oaked—and the final blend is truly excellent.

Kentucky Boy arrived fairly quietly a few weeks ago, at least as far as the general public was concerned, but according to master distiller emeritus Chris Morris it made a big splash at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. I spoke to him recently, and he told me that he spent several hours signing bottles for eager fans waiting in a line wrapped around the block. Kentucky Boy was conceived of by Old Forester assistant master distiller Caleb Trigo and Woodford Reserve master distiller Elizabeth McCall as a tribute to Morris for his 50th anniversary with Brown-Forman. The name came from an old brand that they discovered in the company’s archives, which was a young bourbon released regionally in the years following Prohibition. This new version, however, is something very different.

According to Morris, this is literally a blend of the aforementioned bourbons: Woodford Reserve Double Oaked is that distillery’s bourbon, but with a secondary maturation in a new set of charred oak barrels; King of Kentucky is Brown-Forman’s annual single-barrel, barrel-proof release that has become a collector’s item over the past few years; Birthday Bourbon is Old Forester‘s annual expression released to celebrate founder George Garvin Brown’s birthday (the most recent edition is fantastic). So what does it actually mean to combine all of these whiskeys? Turns out that it’s more than just slapping various names on different barrels. The Double Oaked example is pretty straightforward as to how it differs from regular Woodford, and according to Morris the other two bourbons are set aside after barreling specifically for their particular labels. In other words, there are some significant ways in which these liquids are allocated and monitored as they age.

I asked Morris if he knew what the percentages of each whiskey were in the blend, and he said he did not, but he did say that it’s definitely not equal parts. Whatever the case might be, Kentucky Boy is a really superb bourbon. The concept of combining brand names like these into one whiskey is certainly a marketing gimmick in part, but you can’t argue with the results (you can, but you’re gonna lose that argument). The bourbon is clearly well-aged, with rich notes of oak, dark chocolate, tobacco, and leather (the Double Oaked makes itself known), but it doesn’t go overboard. It definitely reads as a Brown-Forman product, with ripe fruit and banana notes that peek through as you sip, but the palate is chock full of flavors like butterscotch, vanilla, cinnamon, cherry cola, and just a hint of black pepper and nutmeg. There’s also a flash of heat at 100 proof, and honestly I’m glad this wasn’t release as a barrel-proof expression.

But good luck finding a bottle, because Kentucky Boy was released in a limited run and has proven to be quite popular. The whiskey is available at retailers in Kentucky and via Old Forester’s online store that ships to a few states, but bottles are already selling for triple the $100 asking price at secondary websites. Because of course they are. Still, that’s cheaper than a lot of other highly collectible bourbons out there, and I firmly believe that this is one bottle you will not regret dropping some cash on.

Score: 95