Jackie Zykan wasted no time in getting back into whiskey after leaving her position as master taster for Old Forester in 2022. She founded Hidden Barn along with a few partners, and the brand has released a few different batches of whiskey over the past two years. But the latest expression, a 7-year-old bourbon, is undoubtedly the best so far—and proof that this nascent whiskey brand is not a boozy vanity project.
The job title “master taster” sounds kind of nebulous, but for Zykan it basically meant product development and decision making related to various Old Forester expressions, a Kentucky brand owned by Jack Daniel’s parent company Brown-Forman. Zykan’s actual taste also played a big part, both literally in terms of her palate and her ability to help select and design new expressions. Hidden Barn, however, sent her on another path. The brand is a collaboration between Zykan, Neeley Family Distillery cofounder Royce Neeley, and 5280 Whiskey Society cofounder Nate Winegar. Zykan’s title is now master blender, and she has been putting that into action by blending the whiskey produced at Neeley Family Distillery into different small batches of bourbon. According to a rep, Hidden Barn has been acquired by Neeley Family Distillery and now works in partnership with Zykan. She is still an owner but is free to work with other distilleries, and Hidden Barn now has an actual physical home instead of being a non-distilling producer.
The latest release, and the first under this new business arrangement, is a 7-year-old bourbon made from a mashbill of 70 percent corn, 20 percent rye, and 10 percent malted barley. It was distilled at Neeley, aged for five years in barrels that were dried for 24 months in the open air, and then put into new charred French oak barrels for a final two years. The mash was fermented with wild Appalachian yeast and then double distilled in pot stills as opposed to column stills. Just five barrels were selected for this blend—as mentioned before, this is truly a small batch in a world where that term can kind of mean anything—and the final product is non-chill filtered and bottled at 109.4 proof.
This is a very good bourbon, and a real advance in terms of age and flavor from previous releases (which is likely no coincidence). The nose is full of raisin and wood with a ripe plum undercurrent. The palate opens up with baking spice, more stone fruits like peach and nectarine, and a creamy layer of caramel, vanilla, butter pecan, and both dark and milk chocolate. There are dried fruits, leather, and tobacco on the finish, with a cool hit of menthol at the very end.
Clearly, those final two years in French oak had a profound influence on this bourbon and helped guide it down its own unique flavor path. From start to finish, this new Hidden Barn bourbon is unlike anything the big Kentucky distilleries are releasing, and that’s by design. There is some of that “craft” character that might be recognizable to those who have compared whiskeys from legacy and small distilleries over the years, but this is a feature and not a bug. Pricing this whiskey at $80 per bottle is arguably a big ask for those who are hesitant to shell out that much for an unfamiliar whiskey brand, but I think they will be pleasantly surprised.
Score: 88
- 100 Worth trading your first born for
- 95 – 99 In the Pantheon: A trophy for the cabinet
- 90 – 94 Great: An excited nod from friends when you pour them a dram
- 85 – 89 Very Good: Delicious enough to buy, but not quite special enough to chase on the secondary market
- 80 – 84 Good: More of your everyday drinker, solid and reliable
- Below 80 It’s alright: Honestly, we probably won’t waste your time and ours with this
Every week Jonah Flicker tastes the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Friday for his latest review.
