Brown-Forman is known for owning bourbon heavyweight brands like Woodford Reserve and Old Forester, but it’s time for its third brand to get a little attention.
The Coopers’ Craft bourbon brand is named for the “coopering” tradecraft, where an individual (known as a cooper) crafts wooden casks, buckets, or in this case, barrels from scratch. Brown-Forman has actually been coopering their own barrels since 1945, which is kind of a big deal in the bourbon world.
For a whiskey to legally be called a bourbon, it must be aged in a new, charred barrel made from white oak. That little barrel doesn’t just provide a new container for aging, but actually dictates a huge amount of the bourbon’s color and flavor. So you can see why a bourbon distillery would be interested in making and controlling their own barrels. In the case of Coopers’ Craft Barrel Reserve, it definitely paid off.
Coopers’ Craft Barrel Reserve is marketed as the brand’s “chiseled and charred” option as a nod to the signature barrels developed for the bourbon. It was originally released at 82.2 proof, but has recently been raised to 100 proof. Now in most cases, a 100 proof bourbon is likely to also be bottled-in-bond. But since Barrel Reserve doesn’t come with a BIB label, or any clear age statement for that matter, it’s pretty safe to assume that it’s a young bourbon.
But even as a youngin’, this bourbon delivers some interesting flavors. As expected from a barrel-focused company, there are very heavy oak and smokey wood flavors in this bourbon. But then there are also unexpected candy and fruit twists, like caramel apples or candied lemon peels. All of that is rounded out with a vanilla and leather nose, followed by a cinnamon finish.
To get all of those flavors in a 100 proof package for just $28? Well, it still won’t make Coopers’ Craft the premier Brown-Forman bourbon, but it will certainly make it a contender.
STATS: Coopers’ Craft Barrel Reserve Bourbon
- Price for us: $28 for 750 mL
- Proof: 100
- Aged: NAS
- Distillery: Brown-Forman
- Recommendation: Neat
