There's a moment every whiskey drinker knows. You're standing in front of a shelf, looking at another bottle that promises to be "unique" or "small batch" or "limited," and you wonder if it's actually going to taste any different from the last ten you tried. Most of the time, the answer is no. But every once in a while, a distillery does something genuinely different, and it's worth paying attention to.
Image credit: Blue Note
That's the case with the newest release from B.R. Distilling Company, the folks behind Blue Note Bourbon out of Memphis, Tennessee. They just dropped a limited release called Cherry Wood Cask Straight Bourbon Whiskey, and the story behind it is a lot more interesting than your average bottle release.
What Makes This Bourbon Different
Most bourbon finishes involve wine barrels, port casks, or maybe some kind of domestic fruit wood if a distillery wants to get a little creative. B.R. Distilling skipped all of that and went straight to wild cherry wood harvested from the Jura region of eastern France. That's not a typo or a marketing gimmick — it's an actual, sustainably harvested wood source from a part of the world known for its forests and its craftsmanship.
The bourbon itself starts out the normal way. It's aged in American Oak, just like any traditional straight bourbon. But then it gets a finishing period in those wild-cherry casks, and that's where things get interesting. Memphis is known for a lot of things, and one of them is brutal summer heat combined with heavy humidity. That climate isn't just something people complain about — it actually plays a role in how this whiskey develops. The heat and humidity pull character out of the wood faster and more intensely than a cooler, drier climate would, which means the cherry wood has more of a chance to leave its mark on the whiskey inside.
The result, according to the distillery, is a bourbon with a mix of depth and brightness that you don't usually find in the same glass. Drinkers can expect notes of vibrant cherry, warm spice, a gentle sweetness, and some subtle toasted flavor working underneath it all. It's described as finishing in a way that's genuinely unique and sticks around on the palate.
The Mash Bill And The Proof
For the whiskey nerds who like to know exactly what they're drinking, here's the breakdown. Cherry Wood Cask is made from a mash bill of 70% corn, 21% rye, and 9% malted barley. That rye percentage is worth noting — it's higher than a lot of mainstream bourbons, which tend to lean more heavily on corn and use smaller amounts of rye or wheat. That extra rye typically brings a little more spice and bite to the final product, which pairs well with the sweetness coming from the cherry wood finish.
This one was also bottled at cask strength, which comes out to 120 proof, or 60% ABV. For anyone who doesn't drink whiskey often, that's considerably stronger than the standard 80 to 90 proof bottles most people are used to seeing on a bar shelf. Cask strength bottling means the whiskey wasn't watered down before going into the bottle, so what's inside is basically as close as you can get to drinking it straight out of the barrel. It's also unfiltered, which means none of the natural compounds and character that develop during aging were stripped out before bottling.
Straight From The National Sales Director
Dan Jurkovic, National Sales Director for B.R. Distilling Co., explained what the team was going for with this release. "With our new Cherry Cask, we set out to create something that honors the timeless character of great whiskey while introducing a fresh layer of complexity," Jurkovic said.
He also spoke to how the cask strength bottling plays into the overall balance of the whiskey. "The influence of the cherry cask nicely complements the whiskey's natural richness while finishing the expression at cask strength helps preserve its underlying structure to balance the sweetness. It's an elegant expression that offers whiskey enthusiasts something new to discover while remaining exceptionally approachable for those exploring premium whiskey for the first time."
That last part is worth paying attention to. A lot of cask strength, limited release bourbons get marketed strictly toward hardcore collectors and whiskey snobs, the kind of guys who already have a shelf full of allocated bottles and rare finds. But B.R. Distilling is positioning this one a little differently — as something that can work for a guy who's just getting serious about bourbon for the first time, not just the guys who've been doing it for twenty years.
Where Blue Note Cherry Wood Cask Fits In The Lineup
Blue Note Bourbon has built its identity around Memphis and the city's deep connection to blues music. The whole portfolio is built to honor that history, and it's grown quite a bit since it started. The flagship lineup includes Juke Joint, which runs $34.99 a bottle, Toasted (which used to be called Crossroads) at $44.99, Uncut at $49.99, and a Straight Rye Whiskey also priced at $34.99.
Beyond the flagship bottles, Blue Note has built a reputation over the last several years for rolling out limited releases that pick up serious award recognition. That list includes a Premium Small Batch, a Single Barrel Reserve, a Special Reserve, a 17-year bottling, and even a Honey Rye and Honey Bourbon Cask release. Cherry Wood Cask joins that group as the latest experiment in what the distillery calls "alternative cooperage" — basically, playing around with different types of wood and barrel treatments to see what kind of flavor profiles come out of it.
How Much It Costs And Where To Find It
This is genuinely a limited run. B.R. Distilling says there are approximately 1,000 cases of Blue Note Cherry Wood Cask Straight Bourbon Whiskey available. Once it's gone, it's gone, which is typically how these things work with small-batch, cask-strength releases.
A 750ml bottle carries a suggested retail price of $64.99. For a cask-strength, unfiltered, limited release whiskey with an unusual finishing process, that price sits in a pretty reasonable spot compared to a lot of other allocated or specialty bourbons on the market right now.
As for where to actually buy it, the bottle is available online through Seelbach's, and it's also hitting retail shelves in six states: Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Tennessee. If someone lives outside those states, the online option through Seelbach's is going to be the more realistic path to getting a bottle before it sells out.
The Story Behind B.R. Distilling Company
For anyone who isn't familiar with the name, B.R. Distilling Company has been around since 2014, based out of Memphis, Tennessee. It holds the distinction of being the oldest licensed distillery in the city, and it's the company responsible for Blue Note Bourbon, which has built a solid reputation in the whiskey world over the past decade.
The company currently produces five flagship expressions on a regular basis, along with the limited releases that come out periodically throughout the year. Distribution runs pretty wide across the country, covering Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington D.C., and Wisconsin.
For people who don't live in one of those states, or who just prefer to order online, Blue Note Bourbon is also available directly through BlueNoteBourbon.com via a platform called Bevstack. That online option ships to a wider range of states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Bottom Line
For anyone who takes their bourbon seriously, or anyone who's looking to step up from the standard bottles on the shelf, Blue Note Cherry Wood Cask is worth tracking down while it's still available. The combination of a higher-rye mash bill, wild-cherry wood finishing sourced all the way from eastern France, Memphis's punishing climate doing extra work on the barrels, and a cask-strength, unfiltered bottling adds up to something that stands apart from the usual finished bourbons flooding the market right now. With only around 1,000 cases produced, this is the kind of release that tends to disappear from shelves fast, so anyone interested probably shouldn't wait too long to grab a bottle.
