This New Bourbon Blends the Best Barrels From America’s Leading Whiskey-Making States

Jonah Flicker
·2 min read
5

As if there weren’t enough bottles of American whiskey for collectors to keep an eye out for, Stellum Spirits just launched the new Stellum Black Specialty Blends. This series of limited-edition releases combines the best barrels of bourbon and rye from America’s three main whiskey states—Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana—into highly collectible bottles.

Stellum is produced by Louisville’s Barrell Craft Spirits, the company founded by Joe Beatrice that is well-known and regarded for its excellent sourced whiskey blends. While Barrell releases batches several times throughout the year, as well as special cask-finished blends, Stellum keeps things relatively simple with its core bourbon and rye expressions. But these two new releases find Beatrice and his team stretching their whiskey wings a bit. “Stellum Black Specialty Blends evoke the familiarity of two classic styles of American whiskey, taken one step further through our innovative blending and tasting process,” said founder Joe Beatrice in a statement. “Each limited-release blend has an alternate blending profile that incorporates reserve barrels from our stocks with the original Stellum blend.” The new blends will replace the Stellum Black bourbon and rye that were released last December.

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What that means is that the base of these blends is whiskey from MGP in Indiana, which is then combined with more mature whiskey from Kentucky and Tennessee. Stellum Equinox Blend #1 starts with a Stellum bourbon base and is layered with “rare sets of bourbon barrels,” according to the brand. The name comes from the fact that the blend was completed on the evening of the Vernal Equinox and it’s bottled at cask strength of 117.26 proof.

Stellum Fibonacci Rye Blend #1—bottled at cask strength of 115.12 proof—was inspired by the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two before it. According to Beatrice, this mathematical sequence shows up in nature, but is also the basis for testing blends of whiskey. “The Fibonacci #1 blend has six components, volumetrically blended in the ratio of the Fibonacci sequence,” he said in an email. “We did not just blindly do this; we tested these components slotting differently into the ratio, though this particular blend stood out almost immediately. We’ve become experts at finding the perfect blend of art and science—in this case, taking an initial inspiration and then working to polish and perfect the blend in our lab.”

Both whiskeys are available now at retailers in 48 states with an SRP of $99. You can also purchase the blends, as well as the core bourbon and rye and the Black editions, directly through the Stellum website.

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