Daily Dish the Sonoma Market blog
Single Barrel Whiskeys
Exclusively at Nugget Markets
Please note that this is an older article. Any products or services pictured or described may have changed or may no longer be available. Thank you for visiting!
For a truly one-of-a-kind whiskey experience, you can’t top a single barrel selection. Hand-picked by our experts, these limited-edition whiskeys are exclusively at your local Nugget Markets. Not familiar with single barrel whiskeys? Read all about it!
For a truly one-of-a-kind whiskey experience, you can’t top a single barrel selection. Hand-picked by our experts, these limited-edition whiskeys are exclusively at your local Nugget Markets. Not familiar with single barrel whiskeys? Read all about it!
After whiskey has been distilled, it’s aged in large oak barrels. The longer it sits in the barrel, the more is lost to evaporation, and the more it matures into a complex finished product. When most whiskeys are bottled, they are a combination of a couple hundred (small batch) or a few thousand barrels of different aged whiskeys that are blended together for consistency. Occasionally a distiller will take their best barrel and bottle its contents without blending in any others to showcase its unique flavors, hence “single barrel whiskey.”
In theory, no two barrels ever taste exactly alike, so whiskey lovers like to try the single barrel offerings because that particular whiskey will never exist again. Because of the higher quality and limited availability, these type of whiskeys usually sell for a higher price than a distiller’s regular bottlings.
Distillers have long had a tradition of letting retailers like Nugget Markets taste samples from a few different barrels that are all a little different in some way. One might be aged a few years longer, from a little different recipe or aged in a different part of their aging facility, a.k.a. the rick house.*
When our experts choose the sample for the barrel we like the best, we buy all the whiskey from the entire barrel and it’s bottled under the supplier’s label, but with a special statement letting our guests know it was bottled and sold exclusively to us. Look for the tags hanging from the bottlenecks in our adult beverage department to find our hand-picked selections!
Since our selection is always changing and they sell at different rates, each store’s selection is always a little different. If your local Nugget Markets is sold out of your favorite, you can call another one of our stores to see if they have any left. Once we sell out of a particular pick, it’s gone for good. Even if we buy another barrel from that distiller, it will never be exactly the same as the last one or any previous ones we picked from that particular distiller, so if you find a favorite, be sure to enjoy it while it lasts!
Right now, you can find single barrel picks like one from JJ Pfister, a local Sacramento distiller, in our stores. In a few weeks, you can expect more single barrel selections from amazing distillers like Elijah Craig, Larceny, Knob Creek, Four Roses and Leopold Brothers. In a few months, look for our single barrel picks from Buffalo Trace and Weller Full Proof—just be warned, they go fast!
Talk to the wine steward at your local Nugget Markets to learn more!
*Fun fact: The rick house is usually three to eight stories tall, and barrels age differently depending on their placement in the building. Barrels aged lower to the ground age slower and cooler, while barrels stored higher up age faster in the warmer temperatures. Barrels closer to the outside walls are exposed to more temperature changes, while barrels in the middle have only gradual seasonal changes. Each rick house has its own sweet spot where the distiller feels the best whiskey is made and aged. Some distillers rotate their barrels so each barrel spends time in cooler and warmer spots, while some never rotate the barrel and each stays in its spot until it is taken to be bottled, either by itself or blended into a lager batch.
