Elijah Craig 18 Single Barrel The Attainable Unicorn

In this episode of Aussie Bourbon Lovers, we pour something truly special: the Elijah Craig 18 Year Single Barrel – a bottle Dave thought might be a unicorn. Turns out, it kinda is.

We discuss:

• 🥃 The allure and frustration of single barrel bourbons

• 📦 How this one was bottled while we were likely in Kentucky

• 🥜 Nutty notes on the nose, from smoked almonds to Brazil nuts

• 🔍 Why Heaven Hill proofs down an 18-year single barrel to 90 proof

A thoughtful pour with rich stories, rare age, and just enough barrel mystery.

🟠 Keywords: Elijah Craig 18, single barrel bourbon, Heaven Hill, 18 year bourbon, aged bourbon, nutty bourbon, Elijah Craig tasting, Aussie bourbon podcast

 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Elijah Craig Single Barrel 18 Year 03:06 Exploring the Characteristics of Single Barrel Bourbons 03:35 The Elijah Craig Expressions We've Tried 06:01 Understanding Different Elijah Craig Expressions 09:12 Tasting Notes and Personal Preferences

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Incredible flavours, even better stories.

(00:05):
One Pour, 10 Minuts, Aussie BourbonLovers, Sharing Bourbon with Australia.
Oh, there we go.Pretty good pop.
Not bad.What are we drinking, Dave?
Well, I think I thought when I firstopened this that I was opening
what some people call a unicorn.
This is an Elijah Craigsingle barrel, 18 year.

(00:30):
Which is a...
And I think I've justdiscovered right now.
It's a single barrel.So all the 18 years are-Single barrels?
Single barrels, yeah.
Are you showing that to me or areyou showing that to the camera?
Did you zone out?
I thought that that was going to be...No, I was showing it to you.
There was going to be anaudience inside my eyeballs.
I was showing it to you so that youmake sure you got all the
information and everything correct.Thanks.

(00:52):
A larger barrel.A larger barrel, single crack.
Cheers.Cheers.
Eighteen years.Eighteen years.
Was a single barrel, so that'sliterally how long it's aged, right?
That's exactly right.Oh, wow.
It's really nutty on the nose.
In fact, if you're playing along athome, it's got the barrel number.
The barrel number is 65,63, and it was bottled.

(01:13):
Almost grand final weekend,the 18th of September, 2023.
Who won the grand final that year?
Here's the fun thing, actually.
Wait, who won the grand final in 2023?
Can't ask me your questionabout-Not about teams.
Can I come back to them?Is that the one my team won, '23?
Maybe.Yes.
I don't know.I can't get track of it.

(01:35):
I don't know.
Wait, your team doesn't want to...Oh, maybe they did.
Okay, whatever.
We digressing into this weird...
Okay, so wait.
September?Yeah.
Can we put it in thisand come back to this?
You're making a connexionabout where we were.
Wait, wait.
Oh, 2023?Yeah.
September eighth?Yes.

(01:56):
We probably were in Kentuckywhen this was bottled.
I know.Dade is having this-Sorry.
Live revelation.
It's a special bottle anyway.It's a special bottle.
Have a look at that.Stop.
I do love a single barrel because...
Well, I love them and I hate them becauseyou find a single barrel
that you really enjoy, butthe catch is it's a single barrel.
It's not something youcan keep buying a lot of.

(02:18):
So it makes it really wonderful to enjoy.
But also the downside isonce it's gone, that's gone.
Do you know something weirdabout this single barrel?
Tell me, Dave.It's been proofed down.
It's 90 proof.
I don't think I know very many othersingle barrels have been proofed down.
I wonder why they did that.
So it goes further?

(02:38):
Eighteen years is really old.So you got more bottles?
Would that be a…I'm making stuff up.
I'm just guessing.
Yeah, that definitely does makesense, but heaven, who might do that?
I don't know.Do you get nutty on the nose?
It's like, really…Yeah, I don't know.
That's got woodiness.
Oh, yeah, maybe that's some nut.Yeah.
Those smoked diamonds that we opensometimes when we're having our bourbon.
It's like very…I was going to go to Brazil nut, actually.

(03:00):
Is that too boutique?No.
I was going to say a honey-covered almond.
A honey-covered almond?
You know how sometimes theylike honey roast an almond?
Good on you for having a good…
That's a good taste, that one.
I can smell the honey.It noses hotter than 45, actually.
I don't know.What's that?
There's like that woodiness.
It's not a huge amount ofcaramel stuff on that nose to me.

(03:22):
No, it's like a honey nut flavour.
But yes.
But tell me, Dave, we've got quite a few,a little of her look over the shelf,
a lineup of Elijah Craig's up there.
There's a single barrel, a toastedbarrel, a small batch, and a barrel proof.
For people who are justtrying to get their head around what's

(03:44):
the difference in layman's terms?
Well, I think the first step for themwould be that they should go back and
listen to our other podcast abouttoasted barrel and small batch.
But just quickly, what's the…
Obviously, single barrels- No, I'm notgoing to say I'm not answering your
question, listen to the other podcast.
Small Batch is the one that everyone gets.

(04:05):
You can buy it everywhere.
It's easy to get your hands on.
Great shape bottle is really great.
And actually a really banging whiskey.
This is one of theseones that I discovered.
It's like how to do a staple.
It's a really we pour it a lot andit's a good one, really good one.
Really, I think it's often it doesn't havean age statement on, but it's often nine
or 10 years old and it's really very good,really very good and excellent value.

(04:28):
I highly recommend if you're looking for abottle of bourbon, haven't had
one, get your hands on that.
Pretty bottle for yourself,but really good juice inside.
I like these pretty bottles.
I do like a pretty bottle.
And you can listen to some other episodesabout how much I don't
like not pretty bottles.
But then we go to Toasted Barrel.
So that's the same juice, but then theyput it in a toast, a barrel

(04:49):
that's just been toaster.
And then it's been a thing calledflash chard, that particular one.
That gives us some extracaramely sweetness.
And if you taste them side by side, youget this really interesting desserty
flavours in the style,it's not the same notes.
It's not the same.You get some, what do they call them?
Christmas spices or those-It'sa bit more desserty.
Yeah, it's a little bitdouble-oaked-y, but it's not.

(05:12):
It's a bit different.And barrel proof?
Barrel proof.
Barrelproof is this release that wenta little bit nuts a few years ago.
They'd release three of them each year.
There's this idea where there's an Arelease, a B release, and a C release.
Each of those releases, because I'm justgoing to quickly reference exactly what

(05:32):
the months are, so I don't get this wrong.
But the A release, for example, in 2023,and this is why I'm coming back to this
one, because the one we'vegot up there is the...
Elijah Craig Barrelproof C923, which wasthis one that they said
was the one, like this is the bottle tohave the unicorn, the bar
up of what do you want.So we have a C923.

(05:53):
C is the C, A, B, C,third release for 2023.
That's what the '23 is.
And then the '9' isSeptember, the ninth month.
So there's a January one as well, which isA123, A, the first release, 1 January 23.
And then there was a May releaseas well, actually a B523.
But I'm just going to check.A lot of numbers.
So in short-Sorry.

(06:14):
First letter is what release it is.
Second character is the number, which isthe month, and then the
last two digits is the year.
And it seems like it's always January,May, and September that they release them.
Yeah.And so when they say barrel proof…
Sorry, barrel proof.They haven't proofed it down.
They haven't had a water tool.Sorry, sorry.
That's what I wanted to know.Sorry, sorry.

(06:36):
And then single barrel, they have had awater this one, but it's not in your job.
But it's like a single barrel.Or is the barrel proof?
They'll have mixed barrelstogether to get that?
A hundred %, yeah, exactly.
That's a batch, so they don't have touse just one barrel.
Sorry.
It took me a long time to get to that.Sorry.
I didn't know that.
That's how the letters worked.That's good to know.

(06:57):
Yeah, exactly.
And so interestingly then, so Because thiswas bottled, this is nerdy
and boring, but let's do it.
Because this was bottled onthe 18th of September, 2023.
This was theoretically being bottledalmost exactly the same
time as the C-93 was.
This particular bottle of 18-year-old.
I'm just excited that it was being bottledwhile we were pretty much in Kentucky.
We were there, yeah.Yeah, exactly.

(07:17):
We should look at the date moreoften on some of the bottles we get.
I know.And go, When was that bottled?
And what was happening in my life?
And then, I don't know.
What a great idea.
They say drink bourbon and make memories,and you can have drink bourbon
and reminisce about good memories.Here's a fun thing.
I don't know.Does Freddie talk about this in the doco?
Does he say it's a fun idea to spend sometime thinking about what happened 18 years

(07:39):
ago when they firstput that into the barrel?
Yeah, he talks about the-If we do the maths here.
Eighteen years ago.September of 2023.
So 18 years before that, 2005.Oh, wow.
That takes us back a long way.
2005, Dave.
We didn't know each other?No, we did.
We just met, haven't we?We just met.

(08:01):
Yes, that's correct.
We just started dating, actually.
I wonder if we should stop thisconversation before it
gets too weird and boring.
That's a fun thing, though.That is fun, isn't it?
When you go to buy a bottle ofbourbon, look when it was bottled.
This is really old bourbon.
No, but like- Sorry, go on.
Or like, as in it's fun.

(08:21):
As in buy a larger crazybottle for yourself, have a drink.
But when you're at the shop, don'tjust grab the first one on the shelf.
Have a look and see whatdates they were bottled That's fun.
Where there's a single barrel, yeah.
Good gift, too.
You look at the date and line it up withsomething that person's-
Something significant.
You're going to need quite a lot of singlebarrels on the shelf to be able
to find something that's relevant.

(08:42):
But if you can find one, go for it.Just to farm.
Okay, here we go.
I was going to say, can you please havesome of this and tell me it's really old?
So I think this is probably the oldestbourbon we have there, isn't it?
What are we getting?What do you feel like?
And it doesn't have to be complementaryeither, because it's the oldest

(09:03):
bourbon by some distance, I think.
Yeah, it's got thatwoodiness from that, when I say that nutty
smell, it's definitely got that barrely…
It's not as smooth asI thought it would be.
It's a little rougher on the backthan I thought, but it's a nice taste.
But definitely, you get thatoaky barrel flavour.

(09:24):
And I think it's okay for us to say thatI love a really good bourbon.
I reckon, I think,that I might almost prefer
all the other expressions wehave of Elijah Craig over this.
Yeah, but you like a good desserty one.
This one here, I wouldn'tcall it desserty one.
It's definitely nothing,even in the smell.
You've got that nuttinessrather than that caramel.

(09:46):
Well, you keep saying nuttiness, butto me, there's just a lot of wood.
It's just so much barrel.
Yeah, but you definitelyget the wood and the taste.
But that's probably the age.
The more you age it, the more.
It's also a single barrel, so they don'thave the opportunity to then
take other less oaky barrels.
But someone's obviously picked this.Someone's definitely picked it, yeah.

(10:07):
This is delicious.Let's bottle this one.
Yeah, they have.You're exactly right.
Well, here's to 18 years of whiskey.
Yeah.Knowing you, child.
Can you imagine if 18 years ago, sorry.
We were doing a bourbon pop cast.

(10:28):
That's only funny foryou and I to laugh at.
I know.Someone else will laugh, I'm sure.
Let's go and drink some more whiskey andforget about the fact that we've
been in the energy for 18 years.It's too long.
No, it's not.Okay.
It's great.Here's to more of that.
Thanks for listening.

(10:49):
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