Knob Creek 12 Year Cask Strength May be Hitting the Shelves Soon
A label was submitted to the TTB for approval last week, and this submission really came as a surprise to me. Knob Creek 12 Year Cask Strength may be on its way to the market very soon.
This new expressions comes off the heels of the “normal” Knob Creek 12 Year bourbon, which just hit the shelves over the past few months. That offering is bottled at 100 proof, and was received fairly well from the whiskey community. This may be one of the reasons Jim Beam is deciding to make a cask strength variety of their small batch bourbon offering.
According to the label, the new Knob Creek 12 Year Cask Strength bourbon will hold a 12 year age statement and be bottled at 117 proof. There are a couple things about this new label that really intrigue me. Number one is the proof point. The Knob Creek Single Barrel Reserve is bottled at 120 proof. This however is a 9 year single barrel bourbon as opposed to a small batch. The new cask strength being only 117 proof could be due to a few factors. It is possible that the extra three years in the barrel actually lowered the proof a bit compared to the single barrel. The other reason could be due to rick house location of the 12 year barrels. Often time barrels aged on the lower level of the warehouses don’t end up as high in proof as barrels aged on the upper levels. This is typically due to temperature fluctuations. This Knob Creek 12 Year cask strength will be a small batch bourbon as well. Fred Noe will be blending multiple barrels together, some above and some below 117 proof.
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Hey Chris, just heard about this today on Bourbonr and apparently it has hit the shelves in a few states. Haven’t seen it here in Calif., tho. Heard the price will be $95 unfortunately. Not sure I’m a buyer at that price – well, maybe just one lol. As to proof, 117 is just a place holder for the TTB application. Beam doesn’t know the proof when they apply for label approval because the blend hasn’t yet been dumped. I saw something in reddit that it’s 120.5.
Cheers!
Fred