Evan Williams is the second largest selling bourbon in the world. Each year they release a special single barrel vintage after the winter holidays. This year, they are releasing the bourbon vintage early.

“We have dumped and individually bottled over 700 ‘honey barrels’ for the 1999 vintage,” explained Master Distiller Parker Beam, “more than any other prior year, and we feel like we need to switch over to the next vintage a bit earlier than in the past to account for the growing demand.”

The Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage has a redesigned label which more closely resembles the Evan Williams Black Label, their signature bourbon.

This is year 15 of the series, which is always a 9-year-old, rye-recipe bourbon, named for its distillation year. As in the past, each bottle is marked with the exact entry date and bottling date, as well as the barrel serial number. It is bottled at 86.6° proof (43.3% ABV). Suggested retail price is $25.99 for a 750 ml bottle.

Heaven Hill Distilleries, which produces the Evan Williams brand, makes a lot of whiskey. The Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage series can be viewed as the companys “best foot forward.” Every year, they pick the very best whiskey they have available at that age and bottle it. Because it is a single-barrel and a vintage, it varies from bottle to bottle and year to year, but is invariably excellent.