jack daniel's coy hill barrelhouse 8

When you hear "Coy Hill" as it relates to Jack Daniel's whiskey, if your brain is as rotten as mine, you can't help but feel stimulated. You think about the rickhouse sitting at the highest elevation at the distillery, and the ambiguous sorcery that happens to cause whiskey aged there to be infused with so much complexity and depth of flavor. I think about my best friend waiting all night in the New Mexico cold back in 2021 for the high proof Coy Hill release, and the first time we sipped that together and my mind melted.

When I heard that 2024 was going to see a new Coy Hill release, that stimulation set in: I knew I had to do whatever I can come autumn to snag a bottle. More and more information trickled in, the bloodlust of the whiskey world steadily grew, and with it the feelings of hopelessness mounted. The joke eventually became, "I can't wait to never see this bottle!" Up to that point, all the melancholy was borne of the excitement of the enthusiasts: When everyone wants to get their hands on something, it's usually only those with the most resources and time who eventually do. The first (temporary) disappointment coming from the other side was the reveal of the proof ranges. It would seem that the flashy 140+ proof points would be absent in this release. Nevertheless, between the intimated just-shy-of-11-year age of the bottling and the lore about a single lot of barrels laid to rest in "barrelhouse 8," I was still salivating, and still prepared for disappointment.

Smash cut to one exceptionally normal Friday morning in October, I was knocking out some work very early morning (the company I work for is based on the east coast) and poking around on my local Total Wine's website. The closest one to me is randomly positioned deep in the west valley of Phoenix, so it's not often lousy with allocated bottles like the stores closer to the city center are. But on this morning, I happened to catch "limited quantity available" on the Stagg product page. I decided I would take my lunch break early and go scope that out, get in line before the store opened.

So many unbelievable strokes of luck had to happen here. For one, Arizona is fairly well taken care of when it comes to Stagg allocation, so normally that wouldn't excite me enough to get me in the truck. It was just short of a whim. Two: Typically, I spend the extra time to go to a different store a bit further away because they tend to get more allocation. Going to the one I went to was another whim. And last but not least, it must have been well-concealed that this Coy Hill release was showing up, because there was only one other whiskey nerd in line that morning, who was also there on a whim to see if he could score a Stagg.

Five minutes before the store officially opened, an employee came out and said to us, "Y'all are gonna be happy you showed up this morning." We still thought he was hinting at Stagg. Jaws dropped as we walked in and saw 6 square, crystal cut bottles with bright orange label banners and neck tags. This was a special release I never expected to even witness, and I lucked into it randomly.

Nose The iconic "extinct banana" flavor that dominates Jack Daniel's expressions comes in alongside some toasted brown sugar and dessert cake. It is definitely the most balanced version of that Big Mike profile I've experienced in a Jack Daniel's bottling to date. Bold caramel cream also cuts through the banana and leads you confidently into the palate.

Palate Subtle barrel char lends itself to a very complex bananas foster type flavor on the front and mid palate. It is balanced, not overly saccharine sweet like some dessert profiles can be, and this is reinforced as the profile transforms on the deep palate into a sweet cigar tobacco sensation. There are a few punches of rye spice that fill in the gaps between everything else.

Finish That punchy rye spice develops on the finish along with other warm spices: Cinnamon, coriander, and perhaps a whisper of bergamot and orange zest. All the spice forward flavor rests on an interesting "old whiskey" leather note and the cigar tobacco transfers from the palate with a short-lived bloom. The most noteworthy aspect of this finish is its stamina. This is an exceptional, slow-drinking whiskey that invites you to take your time, meander, and explore the flavors. It's damn good.