Barrell Craft Spirits Dovetail Grey Label 2022 Release

The influence of the barrels utilized comes through in the nose with dried black fruits towards cherry and cassis, dill, maple syrup, marzipan, caramel, wood shavings, nougat and homemade popcorn. The palate has a richness to it with a wallop of heat from the cask strength– from there, intense and deep flavors of nougat, ginger, warm baking spices, caramel, and dried cherries and blackcurrants and a pronounced black pepper to finish. D&M Tasting Notes

The idea behind Dovetail is to finish whiskies in three distinct barrels: Dunn Cabernet from Napa, Late-Bottled-Vintage Port Barrels from Portugal, and Rum barrels from the Caribbean. While Barrell has been making Dovetail releases for a number of years, this was the first time that they applied the barrel finishing method to older stocks. In the inaugural Grey Label Dovetail, the oldest stocks clocked in at 20 years of age. With a disclosed source set of Canada, Tennessee, and Indiana– we can infer this came from Gimli Distillery, Manitoba | Dickel Distillery, Tennessee | MGP/ LDI, Indiana. Stepping back a year, the 2021 release of the Barrell Grey label Bourbon carried a 15 year age statement. This is something that Barrell decided to remove from their 2022 releases, partly due to the requirement of long standing US labeling for spirits. (In the US, if there is an age statement it has to be for the youngest stocks in a blend, thus the reason recent batches from Barrell may say 3 Years while containing much older whiskey, on average.) Michael Kennel, D&M  Cask Strength 65.77% ABV