Crafting spirits involves many processes, and those processes help develop the complexity that we have all come to love and admire in a bottle of bourbon whiskey. One of those processes that we use for our Daviess County Bourbon is called finishing. Finishing is when a product is aged in one barrel (which for bourbon has to be a brand new American white oak barrel) and then poured into another barrel (also called a cask) for a determined amount of time.  

Why Different Casks Are Used 

Distilleries use casks that previously held different spirits like rum, wine, ports, French oak, sherry, cognac, sauternes, etc. These different casks introduce new flavor profiles and can add bits of sweetness, toast, vanilla, and much more to the final product.  

For our Daviess County Cabernet Sauvignon Finished Bourbon, we use cabernet sauvignon casks from Napa Valley. To develop our French Oak Barrel Finished Bourbon, we carefully select from all of the major forests in France that provide cooperage oak, including the Vosges, Allier, Nevers, and Tronçais. The oak is processed into staves at one of Independent Stave Company’s state-of-the-art mills in the U.S. and France then developed into finishing barrels. Once the barrels are ready, we pour Daviess County Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey into them and finish our bourbon whiskey for six months before bottling, labeling, and distribution. 

How These Casks Affect Our Bourbon 

Daviess County Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey has an aroma of honey, vanilla, and caramel. On the palate, you get notes of oak, caramel, and graham cracker. Its finish is long, warm, and sweet with a touch of spice. 

Daviess County Cabernet Sauvignon Finished Bourbon has a similar nose. But, on the palate, the barrel finishing process creates a new profile featuring hints of fruit and oak. 

French oak casks provide our Daviess County French Oak Barrel Finished Bourbon with hints of chocolate and oak.  

These two finished variants provide Daviess County with a unique bourbon whiskey portfolio and make our Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey even better.  

Crafting a Legacy 

One of the unique products Lux Row Distillers creates each year is Blood Oath Bourbon. This bourbon whiskey is Lux Row’s highest-end product and is crafted by combining three extra-aged bourbons, including one that is finished in a unique cask. The most recent Blood Oath is Pact No. 7, which contained a bourbon finished in a Sauternes wine cask. Past finishes included cabernet sauvignon, port, rum, cognac, and a toasted oak barrel.  

In the future, you can expect to see more Daviess County variants, each with a unique finish. Our first innovation, Daviess County Double Barrel Limited Edition Bourbon, comes out in September of 2021. This variant is finished in a #2 char barrel with toasted heads and is in partnership with Ducks Unlimited.  

Finishing Your Bourbon Whiskey or Cocktails at Home 

Daviess County Bourbons make great cocktails, and with three different varieties, the options are endless. One excellent way you can learn more about how finishing directly affects the flavor of bourbon is by developing barrel-aged craft cocktails for yourself. Our friends over at Rebel Bourbon wrote a great article titled 6 Steps to Making a Barrel-Aged Cocktail if you’re interested in trying it out. 

If you’re a home distiller, you can experiment by finishing your spirits in different types of barrels. Many distilleries, breweries, and wineries sell used barrels for reasonable prices. 

If you’d like to try Daviess County Bourbon, you can find a bottle or three with our Product Locator.