Unicorn whiskey hunters are feeling a buzz today, because Four Roses has revealed the details of the 2024 Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon, an annual release that is wildly popular among whiskey fans and collectors. This year’s edition, the 17th in the series, includes bourbon aged between 12 and 20 years from three of the Kentucky distillery’s recipes, and we have the details about how to get a bottle.
Four Roses is well known for two things: having one of the best budget bourbons in its lineup of any Kentucky distillery, and the fact that it uses 10 recipes to make its whiskey which is the result of having two distinct mashbills and five different yeast strains to play with. Last spring, master distiller Brent Elliott and his team actually added two more recipes to the lineup, the highest and lowest rye percentages to date: 43 percent rye, 52 percent corn, and 5 percent malted barley; and 10 percent rye, 85 percent corn, and 5 percent malted barley. It will be a few years before these recipes are incorporated into any whiskey releases as the whiskey ages in barrels, but that is a significant development for the distillery.
Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon is usually a blend of just a few of the distillery’s recipes, and this year the ages and details of the components are as follows: 12-year-old bourbon from the OBSV recipe (31 percent of the blend), 15-year-old OESK (23 percent), 16-year-old OESF (39 percent), and 20-year-old OBSV (seven percent). According to Elliott, the OESF component was the biggest surprise of the bunch, which he attributes to the age of the whiskey, providing a pronounced mouthfeel component to the bourbon with notes of dark cherry. The 12-year-old OBSV he described as bright, tangy, and rye-forward, exactly what you’d expect from that recipe. The OESK was another whiskey that he thought had a very strong barrel influence which worked to balance out some of the brightness, while the 20-year-old OBSV is bright for its age. Overall, he came up with about 20 different test blends for this release, and he ended up going with number 17.
“Each year, we strive to bring a new and exciting experience to your glass by blending variations of our distinct recipes to create something you’ve never tasted before from Four Roses,” said Elliott in a statement. “This year, the recipes we hand-selected have created something truly vibrant, bright and unique, while still maintaining a nice delicate spice at the end.” Official tasting notes describe vanilla, honey, and brown sugar on the nose, and ripe berries and tangy citrus on the palate with some herbal notes and spice for balance. The whiskey is non-chill filtered and bottled at 108.2 proof.
The 2024 LE Small Batch will be released in a run of 16,680 bottles in the U.S. According to the distillery, the SRP is $220, which can be either an adorable and idealistic pipe dream or something close to reality depending on which secondary market websites you look at. If you want to grab a bottle at that actual price, here’s what you do—head to the Four Roses visitor center in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky or the visitor center at the Four Roses warehouse and bottling facility in Cox’s Creek on September 14, and be prepared to wait in line. If you need some Four Roses right now to tide you over, you can find the rest of the collection (including some of the previous LE Small Batch editions priced close to the SRP, depending on where you live) available to purchase at ReserveBar.
