New Single Oak Release Compares Warehouse Type.

They don't have chimps running these distilleries.

No, Sir. For example, the big brains at Buffalo Trace must have figured out that interest in their remarkable Single Oak Project might wane by around release number four, which has just rolled out, so they saved one of the more interesting comparisons for now.

That variable is warehouse type.

This release contains bourbon aged in Warehouse L and Warehouse K. As with all of the Single Oak Project releases, there are two bottles in the 12-bottle set in which warehouse is the only variable. That's potentially very interesting.

As Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley puts it, "aging barrels in different environments affects the taste of the whiskey. There has always been much discussion about warehouse placement, even among ourselves, so we're anxious to hear how others rate these bourbons."

Warehouse K is a concrete warehouse with wooden floors, with barrels racked three high on each floor. Warehouse L is all-concrete, with barrels racked six high on each floor. L is considered to be better insulated, so it ages more slowly than K.

The other variables in this release are bourbon recipe (rye or wheat) and grain size. By 'grain size' they don't mean the size of the cereal grains used in the mash, they mean the density of the barrel's wood grain. For this variable there are three possibilities: fine, average, and coarse.

The announcement of each new release usually brings out the people who don't think much of this project. The people who like it mostly keep to themselves, but somebody is buying all of the whiskey. Because it's so limited, some stores will only sell the full cases, not individual bottles. Binny's, here in Chicago, is one of them.