I don’t know how you spent your night Friday, but I watched a man drink whiskey for almost four hours so you didn’t have to. Fred Minnick is one of the most respected whiskey experts in the country, and his annual taste-off of the 100 American whiskeys that have risen to the top of his weekly tastings is considered one of the most important prizes a distillery can win.
Placing in the top 10 is quite an honor and can make a bottle’s price skyrocket on the secondary market. So the fact that three spirits from two small Middle Tennessee-based companies made it to the tasting is a really big deal! Bottles can qualify for the top 100 in different ways, including Minnick’s notes from his annual ASCOT Awards or from periodic tastings of samples submitted by distilleries.
Without further ado, here are the three whiskeys from the Nashville area that qualified for the top 100 and how they got there.
OH Ingram River Aged Kentucky Straight Bourbon (2024 Flagship)
Proof: 117.7
Price: $83.99
Why it’s here: Damn, it’s complex, but I love how they actually age this on a river, similar to the old days of transporting bourbon.
Nashville Barrel Company Nashtucky Connected Spirits Small Batch Rye
Proof: 112.4
Price: $69.99
Why it’s here: Won Best Blend of Straight Ryes at ASCOTs
Nashville Barrel Company Nashtucky Connected Spirits Small Batch Bourbon
Proof: 120.4
Price: $69.99
Why it’s here: Similar to the Top 5 finisher from last year.
But the story gets even better. After Minnick tastes (and spits) his way through all 100 samples, he starts to cull and rank the list, finally reaching a top 25 that he retastes and retastes, often taking two glasses head to head. All three Middle Tennessee entries kept hanging in there, earning complimentary comments from Minnick along the way.
Eventually, OH Ingram’s Flagship Bourbon, a limited release blended from their favorite barrels of the year, scored a remarkable ninth-place finish, and the two NBC products amazingly survived into the top five. Minnick has been a fan of Nashville Barrel Co. products almost since the very beginning, but since all the tastings are blind, he should have had no idea that he has two of their offerings in the top five.
He loved the 7-year-old bourbon, but was even more effusive about the special rye blend that NBC put together under their Nashtucky brand. He called it “spicy and delicious” and punctuated his comments with, “Sumbitch, that’s good!”
In the end, Nashville Barrel Co.’s bourbon placed fourth, and Minnick held a multiround taste-off between NBC’s rye whiskey and Russell’s Reserve 15-year from Wild Turkey, a much-coveted release from earlier this year that I concur is freaking delicious! After multiple repours and tastings, Minnick couldn’t come to a conclusion between these two very different spirits, so he decided to choose based on an extremely objective criterion — which one had the longest finish.
He pulled out his phone and actually timed how long he could detect the flavor of the whiskey after the first sip, and the Russell’s Reserve outlasted the NBC by a good bit. So NBC’s rye finished a very respectable second.
Only then did Minnick’s team reveal what each blind spirit had been. When he saw that NBC had finished second, he exclaimed, “A small little company out of Nashville! I love, love Nashville Barrel Company. There are some awesome dudes there.” When NBC was also revealed as the fourth-place finisher, Minnick was gobsmacked, because none of the big-boy distilleries from Kentucky had more than one product in the top 10, although Buffalo Trace did have a couple spread across different brands.
After drinking for four hours, Minnick let his tongue run a little wild at this point. “Nashville Barrel got No. 4 as well?! That MFer! Hooolllly shit!” He was also genuinely surprised to find out that OH Ingram had scored a ninth-place finish. “That’s a big win for them!”
Indeed, all three wins are a big deal for Nashville brands, and kudos to all involved. Minnick recognized the importance of what he had just done, saying, “Three of the top [sic] six — little old bitty small brands. Wow!” I couldn’t agree more, and believe it or not, Nashville whiskey fans can probably still find bottles of all three of these products in local stores or get them directly from the distilleries. At least for now, so don’t dawdle!
[Update: Fred Minnick reached out to me this morning to let me know that his team didn't realize that he was counting backwards as he ranked his No. 6-10 choices and inadvertently labeled OH Ingram's Bourbon as No. 6 instead of No. 9. The rankings have been corrected online and in this story. Still a great showing on their part!]
