Dessert in a Glass? Nulu Maple Brûlée Single Barrel

In this episode of Aussie Bourbon Lovers, we open a fresh bottle of Nulu Maple Brûlée Single Barrel, a Kentucky Bourbon Festival pick that delivers rich, dessert-like flavour in every sip.

We talk through how the maple brûlée process works, the unique way barrels are treated, and why this whiskey has a sticky mouthfeel and dessert-style notes like sticky date pudding, butterscotch, and dark chocolate.

We also share the story of why we regretted not picking up a bottle last year — and why this year, we made sure to grab one early.

This is one of the richest and most unique bourbons we’ve tried, and a perfect example of what makes KBF single barrel picks so exciting.

 

Chapters

00:00:14 – Fresh bottle pop to kick things off 00:02:19 – Introducing Nulu Maple Brûlée Single Barrel (KBF pick) 00:04:19 – How maple brûlée finishing works (barrel & syrup process) 00:06:21 – What “brûléeing” a barrel really means 00:07:23 – Dessert-like notes: sticky date, caramel, chocolate 00:08:20 – Regrets from last year’s KBF and why we grabbed this bottle early 00:09:30 – Tasting notes, mouthfeel & why it’s a festival favourite

Episode Transcript

(00:14):
Oh, that is a fresh bottle pop if ever there was one.
Definitely.
What are we drinking out Dave?
This is a Nulu.
That is a noisy pour.
This is a Nulu maple brulee cask.
It's a single barrel pick from the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
Of course it is.
We'll just come back.
Yes.
We're back on Australian terra firma.

(00:35):
Let me read the label because I'm going to get all the details wrong.
Oh.
I hadn't put the cork back in.
Okay, sorry.
didn't know and I probably didn't really tip it all over your lap.
Okay, well, I'll hold it very straight so we don't spill very full bottle.
We're not used to full bottles.
Yeah, this is great.
What a good problem to have.
Usually the bottle is mostly empty.
Thanks, Cain.
So 58.5%, finished six months, aged seven years to start with.

(00:58):
then, so that is six months in what they call a maple brulee finish.
So last year, I'll tell the story in a sec.
Hang on.
Cheers.
Well, cheers to our return to Australia.
return.
just us safe.
Our bottles were safe too.
And we're enjoying our new one.
Exactly.
when, um, when last year I was at, I was at, we were at together, Kentucky BureauFestival.

(01:24):
Yes.
Last year, not this year.
Last year's Kentucky Bureau Festival, the 2024 You had a regret, didn't you, Dave?
I had, you know, always come away from whistly festivals with a regret saying it's notabout the ones you didn't get.
Yeah.
Or that you didn't get a chance to try enough or whatever and everyone's...
But this particular regret you've been thinking about like since the last Kentucky BourbonFestival.

(01:45):
It's true.
did.
I did.
Why?
And it's connected to the Nulu bottle.
Can I tell you about the specifics of this whiskey because, well you already know, but letme tell you again.
It smells so good.
I reckon last year's might have been a little bit more potent in the way that I liked it,but they probably dialed it back a bit to make it a little bit more balanced.
When it's got the name Brulee on the label, you definitely obviously instantly are like,

(02:09):
Oh, Grumbrouillet.
But I get the top, my mum used to make this sticky date pudding, which I don't think itwas actually sticky date pudding, it was more of a spongeless saltanus in it.
But it had this brown sugar crust on it with a really sticky, and that's what I get.
Like that really maple syrup sticky baked dessert.

(02:29):
It's almost like that buttery, what is a dessert, like a butter and brown sugar?
What are you making if you're doing that in a pan?
in a pan or anything.
Caramelized onions.
Making a pizza.
We're making pizza and caramelized onions.
How unhealthy are your onions that you...
Wow.

(02:50):
What are you feeding that to me?
Can't we just cook onions as...
I used to back in the day.
Caramelized onions, a little bit of breadcrumbs.
That does have a really fun note.
All right.
So this is why this is so fun.
What?
Hang on.
Should we drink?
Just tell the story first.
We're waiting.
Tell us what your credit is and why we've come back happy.

(03:12):
My credit is that I, and now you're drinking it without me.
What?
This is awful.
Why would you do it?
What's going on here?
I thought we were going to work as a team.
No, you're going to tell the story while I drink it.
I didn't agree to that.
We didn't have that plan at all.
This was never the deal.
We're out of practice.
We've been in Kentucky and we're out of practice.
What would happen?

(03:32):
Imagine if there was a distiller here, how embarrassing.
All right, what happens is they take the barrel, they put the bourbon in it.
Brand new Chardoke barrel, it's a bourbon.
Brand new Chardoke, they put the bourbon in it.
In this case for seven years.
Then they take that barrel and they give it to the maple syrup guys.
it's had maple syrup in Wisconsin, does that sound right?
Or is that cheese?
We could be making it up again.
But it goes into a barrel that has had maple syrup in it.

(03:55):
Hang on, you've gone, you've taken a step.
Oh, Too many here.
Because we've got the bourbon barrel, they're giving it to maple syrup people.
And the maple syrup, people put their maple syrup in the bourbon barrel.
That's what they do with it.
Then they age it for as long as they do that for.
And I actually don't know what the time is.
Maybe a year or something.
I'm making it up to get the bourbony flavors on the maple syrup.
Then they tip it out and the bourbon guys go, Hey, give us it back.

(04:16):
We want it back now.
And they get the barrel back and put the bourbon in it.
No, you missed a step.
I can.
Because they take it and they brulee the barrel.
This is the thing.
So what they do is they literally kind of like get a
fire like you would to char a it like recharging or No, it's like brulaying.
But is it closer to a toast or a char?

(04:38):
No, it's neither of those things.
It's brulaying.
Wow.
So how is that I'm glad I know about this than you do.
Toasting and charring is like, that's what you do to timber.
We're talking about something you're going to do to a dessert.
Yeah.
Because the inside of the barrel now is no longer just wood.
It's maple syrup.

(04:58):
So they brule the maple syrup that's on the inside of the barrel.
Yeah.
And then dip the bourbon.
Then they put the bourbon back in.
You're right.
But you skipped quite a few steps.
Anyway, so that's why you get this delicious finish and I can't wait to taste it.
It tastes delicious.
Yeah, okay.
All right.
No, it really, it has a really, really delicious caramely like aftertaste that is verydeserty.

(05:25):
To me, this is an ultimate deserty bourbon.
It's so good.
It's so good.
It's so good.
is one of the richest, most deserty, like even the mouth feel on it is, I don't know whyit does that.

(05:46):
And it's not sweet, deserty.
Like, you know, sometimes you can get one that has quite, yeah, but like not, I don'tknow.
You know, sometimes where it's kind of like, you would describe it as sweet.
This kind of is more, I don't know, that butterscotch-y, caramelly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just like.
It's probably a bit hard to work out what you think it would do.

(06:09):
Unless you'd had, I don't know if you can brule maple syrup anyway, can you?
like the idea of that is, don't know if you can.
It's kind of like, it's kind of like the, it's kind of what it says on the barrel.
It's like on the bottle.
It's like, it's a, like a deep burnt, not like burnt in an unpleasant way, but like cookedmaple syrup thing.

(06:32):
Like it's not that far away from a sticky date pudding or it's those complexities andstuff.
then I also get like chocolatey-ness or like that it's dark.
It finishes right on the back of my tongue.
really.
Yeah.
Kind of you had a dark chocolate.
It would go well with dark chocolate.
We should have had dark chocolate here to enjoy with it.

(06:54):
Do you want to scurry off and get some?
We'll do that after.
The other one that I reckon is that
This bottle's not going to last long.
I'm glad we went early on the bottle.
We've probably never had a bottle quite that full Dave.
Well, we have, at the start of every bottle, we have bottles that are that full.
No, but in a podcast, we're normally drinking them when they're at the end.

(07:14):
But the other one is the mouthfeel.
That is like a really sticky adhesive mouthfeel.
is.
Well that would be from the brulee, right?
Maybe.
It's really, it's got a really.
It's not right to say it's syrupy because there's not enough syrup in there to be able tothat.
But it's the flavor.
The flavor is, yeah, the syrupy flavor comes through.

(07:37):
And we got this bottle because Dave regretted not getting last year's bottle.
And so we got this year's bottle.
was one of the first, we bought that on the first day, didn't we?
Of this year's KBF.
You're right.
We went to Sean at Burton James and got that single barrel of Burton James, which is justamazing.
And then we went to Nulu because you wanted just over the way and I was like, Nulu, Iwonder if they've got another maple relay.

(07:58):
And indeed they did.
And I was like, I'm not letting everyone else buy that without me getting it.
Exactly.
There was no question about it.
We got it.
We tasted it and we got it.
We didn't really even taste it.
It smelled so good.
It's not messing around.
It's one of the Distillers Rory picks.
the team, Whiskey Godmother and the team...
The team they put together at KBF.
Yeah, they pick them and they knew how...

(08:20):
successful this was, because this was one of these bottles that everyone was kind oftalking about.
Yeah.
Afterwards last year.
how could you not like it?
It is.
It's so good.
It's spicy.
It's in, this like, I get a nice.
It doesn't have a heat to it.
Like sometimes when you have spicy it like.
Don't you reckon?
I'm getting like a nice.
I'm getting a Cinnamony rice.
I think I'm calling it a rice spice.

(08:41):
I don't know what the mash bill is, but like I reckon there's like a nice little bit of a.
We don't know much.
We know the taste is really good.
And you know more about how it's made than I do.
No, no, but I reckon it's like a nice kind of tingle on my tongue.
Yeah.
Which I think that's a rice vice, it?
Your tongue is tingling.
Yeah.
I'll describe it that way.
Yeah.
I like it a lot.

(09:01):
And it's not messing around.
It's 58.5%.
So that's like...
And how many years?
I'll just say, what, seven years?
Well, it's seven years in the original barrel.
And then they send that away.
It's and then obviously it's not the same barrel.
can bring another barrel.
they can't call it a bourbon because they've re-put it in.
Hmm.
Interesting.
Straight bourbon whiskey finished in maple brulee barrels.

(09:23):
So that's why they have to say whiskey, right?
Bourbon whiskey?
They're saying it's a bourbon whiskey.
I think it's a bourbon, but it's a bourbon that's finished.
I think it's the same way Andrew's going to be saying it's a bourbon finished in a portwine cask.
I think that's what saying.
you put it something else that loses the...
I think you can't just, you can't say it's just a bourbon.
Yeah.
I think that's, I think that's what it But you can say it's bourbon that's finished.

(09:43):
I think you can say that.
I don't know.
That's...
I don't want to the TTB.
How would I know?
Have all the answers Dave.
If we were there for a week.
Yeah, but I was focused on a lot of different kind of avenues with different things.
Yes.
But it was a terrific trip.
They just give you such a little pour in your little mini Gillian Caranel.

(10:05):
I knew I wanted it.
So I'm so happy we got a bottle home.
I know it really, that's not going to last forever.
If you're in Australia and you want one.
I don't know, make friends with someone else who's got a bottle because you're not havingany of mine.
I was going to say.
Cheers.