On July 18, 2023, Jonathan Masiano released a toasted barrel bourbon and rye for his K.Luke brand whiskies. Like previous releases, the bourbon is a blend of high and low rye bourbons from Kentucky and Indiana, and bottled at Bardstown Bourbon Company in Kentucky. The bourbon is 119.2 proof, which is a little bit higher than the Batch 3 bourbon. This bottle cost me $113. Of course, toasted barrels are exposed to extreme indirect heat to release different flavors from the wood rather than charring alone. A number of bourbon producers are using toasted barrels to release new and creative products.

The color on this is a very nice deep, dark amber, reflecting a good amount of barrel time and/or influence. On the swirl is a nice thin gravity defying film but with some big thick legs. After a bit the film beads up into more legs. Really nice oily whiskey. The nose is a very traditional bourbon nose with caramel and vanilla, but the toasted oak is really assertive here and the oak notes really come for the fore, along with some herbal and grassy notes. A second nosing and my mouth is watering. On the palate are well balanced notes of caramel and vanilla, with the vanilla starting to edge out with caramel as I chew it. But what is really different about this is the assertiveness of the toasted oak with flavors that are very different from charred oak notes – nice oak tannin but with some sweet wood sugars that mingle with the grassy herbal notes of the high rye bourbon. There is a lot to unpack in this whiskey on the palate. On the finish the vanilla fades and the oak notes and herbal notes linger until turning into cloves with an oak tannin undertone, that also lingers for a long time and remains very assertive during that long time. I honestly found myself sitting here wondering when this was going to fade; this bourbon just kept saying, I am still here man.

This is a really tasty bourbon, that has a ton of complex flavors. While it has some similarities to batches 3 and 4 (I had a little Batch 4 left on my living room bar and had a little for a comparison), the toasted oak really adds complexity to K.Luke’s already delicious bourbon. When it comes to bourbon, I am an oak and proof hound, and this whiskey hits all the right notes for me. I also tend to favor low rye and wheated bourbons to high rye, but the high rye bourbon in this blend just really works with the toasted barrel flavor That, and it is as if Jonathan was trying to create a whiskey with the longest finish for some competition. The oak and clove notes are still handing around basically saying “what’s up?” after five minutes. This is an great bourbon at the price point, but the finish is an unexpected bonus that makes this bottle really special.