Woodford Reserve’s New Bourbon Is Finished in Sonoma Pinot Noir Casks
It seems that there’s a lot going on with Woodford Reserve this month. We just covered the release of the Toasted Oak Four Grain, a whiskey that actually finds success with a toasted oak barrel finish. And now there’s news of another cask-finished whiskey from the distillery, Sonoma Triple Finish.
This new bourbon is part of the Master’s Collection, not to be confused with the Distillery Series, a lineup of whiskeys created in 2004 that are available to purchase at the distillery and select retailers in very limited numbers. The 2023 expression, Sonoma Triple Finish, is classic Woodford bourbon that was individually finished in three different types of casks: Sonoma County Pinot Noir wine, brandy, and bourbon barrels that were previously used to age red wine. According to a rep for the brand, the Pinot finish was 1.5 years, the used bourbon barrels was 3.5 years, and the brandy barrels was a long nine years. These liquids were then blended together to create the final product, which master distiller Elizabeth McCall says is “a whiskey that brings together the worlds of bourbon and wine in a way unlike any we’ve released before.”
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Two of these barrel finishes have been used by the distillery before, just not in this particular combination and formulation. In 2014, Woodford released what it claims is the first ever Kentucky bourbon finished in Pinot Noir barrels called Sonoma-Cutrer Pinot Finish (both that winery and Woodford are owned by Brown-Forman, the parent company of mega-brand Jack Daniel’s). And in 2016, Woodford released a brandy cask-finished bourbon as part of the Master’s Collection. According to the brand, the wine and brandy barrels for this release were sourced from “famous Sonoma County wineries,” and the used bourbon barrels were originally used to age Woodford.
We have not had a chance to sample this bourbon yet, but official tasting notes describe vanilla and cinnamon on the nose, followed by vine and red fruit, vanilla bean, and oak on the palate. The SRP for Sonoma Triple Finish is $150, and while it might be difficult to find online at the moment, you can find the entire Woodford Reserve lineup for sale at websites like ReserveBar.
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