Regular readers of my blog know that I love Barrell Bourbon, and that Hokus has been getting great single Barrel picks of Barrell’s 14 year old Cascade Hollow bourbon this year. But this latest one is something special, and not because of the label.

In a play on the Pope accidentally tagging the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, this bottle is dedicated to the Saints who have had back to back wins over the last two weeks and who have a rematch with the Falcons on Thanksgiving.

This one is 112.58 proof. What is most striking is the color on this one. It is so red. Red like George T. Stagg William LaRue Weller red.

Beautiful oily long legs. Very traditional bourbon nose; vanilla, caramel, some nuttiness and oak. Herbal rye spice. On the palate the rye spice mixes with baking spice all while backed by very traditional and good bourbon flavors, and some nutty flavors in deep background. Cinnamon and oak linger on the finish.

This one reminds me of the recent Old Fitzgerald bottled in bond releases as far as flavor.

Here is the other thing for me: I opened this bottle a week ago after supper Saturday night, took pictures, and was enjoying it so much I didn’t feel like writing about it. I just wanted to enjoy this one. I have been sipping on it over the last week with a constant drum in my head to “leave some for the review.”

I only had a third of the bottle left to start this review. I am pretty sure that will be gone this evening.

So, I am going to go buy two more bottles this week at Hokus. At $100 a pop. One for Thanksgiving and one for the bunker.

This particular barrel is amazingly good and I highly recommend this one.