When the Scene profiled Michael Hinds back in 2020, he had just begun transitioning his hobby — picking out exceptional barrels of whiskeys to bottle and donate to charitable auctions — into a going concern named Nashville Barrel Co. Quickly, his special releases of rum, rye and bourbon became cult favorites, often selling out entire runs in a single day.
Now that he has built up industry connections and a loyal clientele, Hinds has expanded Nashville Barrel Co. to include a barrelhouse and tasting room at 222 Fesslers Lane. There, Hinds stores and ages the barrels that he selects and purchases from distilleries around the country until he determines the proper moment to bottle the spirits for retail release.
In the tasting room, visitors can sample flights of Nashville Barrel Co. spirits ranging from their regular releases to more exotic offerings. Another special opportunity is what Hinds calls the Bottle Pick Experience. Until recently, it was rare for individuals to take part in single-barrel selections. This was for several reasons. First, the chance to pick a barrel was usually reserved for restaurant chains or retail liquor stores, because they had relationships with the distillers and local wholesalers. Secondly, buying a barrel means that purchasers have to take the entire barrel at once. This is a five-figure investment, often without the knowledge of exactly how many bottles remain in the barrel after years of the effect of the “angel’s share” — the annual loss of whiskey from the barrel thanks to evaporation. Lastly, not everyone has a talented palate like Hinds and the ability to predict what a whiskey might evolve into after more time in the barrel.
With the Bottle Pick Experience, visitors can enjoy a mock barrel pick, with up to 12 participants sampling cask-strength pours from four different barrels. “We saw a void in the ‘Bourbontunity’ experience options in Nashville,” says Hinds. “We have more than 80 single barrels that guests can taste from, and they never have to leave our tasting room.”
During the 60- to 90-minute session, groups can decide on the best barrel from the quartet and go home with their own bottle. The Bottle Pick Experience concludes with a behind-the-scenes tour of Nashville Barrel Co.’s barrel rooms and bottling facilities.
Hinds has put his palate to good use with another innovative project, this time revolving around honey. The best casks in a stillhouse are sometimes referred to as “honey barrels,” but Hinds has taken that concept a step further by creating the first single-hive/single-barrel honey. He recruited another local barrel-picking expert, chef Matt Bolus of The 404 Kitchen, to assist in the project. Lewisburg, Tenn., beekeeper Grant Clarke brings pails of honey from five different hives at his apiary.
Hinds and Bolus tasted through a selection of sourced bourbons and ryes to determine dominant flavor components, then through all five honeys to match them up with the spirits. Then the whiskey was dumped from the casks into tanks, and the barrels were filled with the honey to take on the characteristics of the whiskey and the barrel for a few months before bottling for sale at Nashville Barrel Co.’s tasting room. When that’s done, the spirits will be replaced in their original barrels for a unique honey finishing. After the rye and bourbon have been bottled, a fourth collaborator will use the empty barrels — Kevin Antoon of Southern Grist Brewing Co. will age stout beer in them for release in his brewery’s two taprooms. When all that is complete, Antoon plans to chop up the well-used barrels into chips and use them to smoke meat.
In the end, this mad-scientist collaboration will result in single-hive honey finished in whiskey barrels, single-barrel spirits finished in honey barrels, and a unique honey- and whiskey-finished stout beer. And that’s not to mention what should prove to be some pretty special barbecue!
Hinds recently made national whiskey news thanks to a project that took him back to his original roots in the industry, selecting special spirits for charitable causes. After December’s deadly tornado outbreak swept through Kentucky, the Kentucky Distillers’ Association and bourbon writer/curator Fred Minnick put together an auction of rare spirits and special experiences to raise money for recovery efforts. In just three days, they assembled a list of auction items that ultimately raised more than $3 million to help those affected by the storms. One of those lots was the chance to purchase a single barrel of Four Roses Bourbon in the 17- to 24-year-old range — the oldest whiskey the distillery had ever offered up as part of a single-barrel pick. Hinds was immediately intrigued. He had been involved with a group of serious whiskey collectors in previous mega auctions before, and it wasn’t long before the group text became active again. “Are we getting the band back together?” they asked.
Hinds took the lead in organizing and handling the bidding for the group, despite all the uncertainties involved. “You don’t even know how many gallons there will be,” he explains. “With something that old, we just hoped there would be something in the barrel!”
The group determined their maximum bid beforehand, and advance proxy bids for the lot reached $200,000 before it even went live. “It was pretty crazy,” Hinds says. “The price went from $200 to $270,000 in less than a minute!” In the end, the consortium purchased the chance to select a barrel for an astonishing $278,000.
All 10 members of the bidding group traveled to Lawrenceburg, Ky., to have dinner with Four Roses master distiller Brent Elliott and sample the barrels, which Elliott pulled from his rickhouses. “We decided we were going to pick what tasted best, now matter how much whiskey there was in the barrel,” says Hinds.
“They really rolled out the red carpet for us at Four Roses,” he says. “We got to try whiskey from 18 to 24 years old.”
But Hinds and his crew found the very oldest to be a little too tannic and bitter. “One of the barrels we tried may have had 12 bottles in it at the most,” he says. “The extra age didn’t do it well.”
In the end, the group agreed on a barrel of Four Roses OBSF yeast and mashbill combination that had been aging for 19 years and four months. “It was complex with dark leather and dark oak qualities, and we estimate we’ll get 50 to 60 bottles out of it,” he says. “They were kind enough to offer us the sister barrel as well, which was beyond our expectations!”
So at least that could possibly cut the price per bottle in half to a paltry $2,300 apiece. But these scarce bottles won’t appear on the secondary market — this is a group of bourbon drinkers, after all.
“I’ll probably use a couple bottles to donate to charitable auctions to continue to raise money,” Hinds says. “Cancer is a big charitable emphasis for me. We got numerous calls from friends around Kentucky thanking us for helping out. We just wanted to be a part of something cool and loved the chance to be able to do something special for our sister state.”
