3 New Bourbons: Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch, Chattanooga Harvest, and Woodinville 8 Year Old

August is when we start seeing the first of the fall releases, and Four Roses is right on time with this year's Limited Edition Small Batch expression, always among the most highly anticipated of the season. It's first available at the distillery and the nearby Four Roses warehouse (details below) and then rolls into retail in mid-September. Tennessee's Chattanooga Whiskey has a new experimental expression called the Harvest Batch, this one is a seven-grain bourbon aged in six different barrels. And finally, from Washington State, Woodinville Whiskey has released its most remarkable whiskey to date—an 8 year old bourbon that's the culmination of a decade of experimentation to find what Woodinville calls "the best barrel in the world" for maturing its bourbon. In concert with Independent Stave Co., the distillery filled eight different barrel types with new make and aged them for 4 1/2 years before deciding which barrel type was best. The winner was a heavily toasted, lightly charred barrel made from 24-month open-air seasoned staves, where the bourbon was then aged for a further 4 years.

Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon (2024 Release)

ABV: 54.1%
SRP: $220
Availability: Limited

The latest Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch bourbon is comprised of four batches aged 12 to 20 years old. For all of its whiskeys, the distillery pulls from its 10 bourbon recipes that use combinations of five yeast strains and two mashbills, and for this year’s Limited Edition Small Batch release, master distiller Brent Elliot blended 12 year old OBSV (20% rye mashbill; delicate fruit and rye flavors), 15 year old OESK (20% rye mashbill; baking spice heavy), 16 year old OESF (20% rye mashbill; light grain and mint notes), and 20 year old OBSV.

Four Roses has 16,000 bottles of this year’s release available. Fans will have a chance to purchase the whiskey on September 14, either at the distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky or at the Four Roses Warehouse & Bottling Facility visitor center in Cox’s Creek; it’s a first-come, first-served event, with gates opening at 7 a.m. and the visitor center opening at 9 a.m. As a reminder for the extra keen, no overnight camping is permitted on either Four Roses property. After the 14th, the whiskey will roll out to retailers nationwide.

Chattanooga Whiskey Experimental Batch 039: Harvest Bourbon

ABV: 57.5%
SRP: $70
Availability: Limited

For Chattanooga’s 39th Experimental Batch, the distillery worked with a high-malt, 7-grain bourbon pulled from six barrels, which were seasoned, charred, and toasted to various lengths and levels.

In addition to corn, malted barley, and malted rye, the whiskey’s mashbill includes raw rice, malted rice, malted oats, and malted triticale—a hybrid grain of wheat and rye designed to combine the high-yield potential of wheat with the hardiness of rye. One-third of the whiskey aged in char No. 3 barrels seasoned for 18 months; another third aged in char No. 3 barrels with a proprietary toast profile; and the final third aged in char No. 1 barrels that were seasoned for 18 months and made with the proprietary toast profile.

Since launching the Experimental Batch series in 2015, Chattanooga has explored hundreds of grains, barrels, and production techniques, resulting in 39 Experimental batches and 56 Experimental single barrel whiskeys.

Woodinville 8 year old Straight Bourbon

ABV: 50%
SRP: $130
Availability: August 17th at Woodinville Distillery, nationwide in September

Woodinville’s newest bourbon is the result of a decade-long experiment that examined maturation barrels. Working alongside Independent Stave Company, one of the country’s top cooperages, Woodinville’s founders aged bourbon in one of eight different barrels. Each barrel had a completely unique profile, with char levels ranging from 1–5, a mix of open-air and kiln-dried seasoning periods, and one with thin staves.

After four and a half years, Woodinville ran a gas chromatography test to examine the levels of key flavor-carrying compounds in each barrel. One of the barrels—which sported a heavy toast/flash char, and was constructed from staves air-dried for 24 months—had significantly higher concentrations of certain compounds than the others, with more furfural (almond-like sweetness), vanillin (vanilla), and some phenols. After the test, Woodinville opted to age the bourbon for another 4 years, then bottled it, culminating in this release.

While most distillers stick with No.-2 or No.-3 char levels, others instead opt for faster chars paired with a heavy toast like Woodinville has done here. Toasting uses lower temperatures and also takes much longer than charring, with the goal being to break down flavor-bearing compounds slowly. (Heavy toasts can take upward of 40 minutes, while charring generally takes under a minute.) The flash char is typically more of a compromise than a willful choice on the part of the distiller, as most American whiskeys must be aged in new charred oak by law.