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Woodford Reserve Honey Barrel Finished Bourbon Review (Distillery Series)
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May 28, 2025
To celebrate Bourbon Heritage Month, Woodford Reserve released a new limited-edition bottle as part of its annual Distillery Series – Honey Barrel Finish. This new product is Woodford Reserve Bourbon finished in barrels that once stored honey. Woodford Reserve Distillery loaned some of its freshly-dumped bourbon barrels to a local honey bee farmer in Woodford County, Ky. That farmer then aged his honey in the barrels. The barrels were later returned to Woodford Reserve Distillery where they were refilled with bourbon to create the perfect subtly sweet liquid. Follow and Subscribe on Twitch for Gaming Streams: https://www.twitch.tv/bourbonbytes Support the Channel on Patreon for Exclusive Hangouts and Early Video Access: http://www.Patreon.com/BourbonBytes Join the Whiskey & Gaming Lounge Discord Server: http://BourbonBytes.com #WhiskeyTube #Bourbon
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I really hope they stick with this, pun intended
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Hello everyone, welcome to Bourbon Bites. My name is Clifton and today I'm reviewing the latest
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release from the Woodford Reserve Distillery Series. To celebrate Bourbon Heritage Month
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Woodford Reserve actually put out a honey barrel finished bourbon. Now this is available at the
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Woodford Reserve Distillery Gift Shop as well as a few select Kentucky retailers. By the way
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I do want to say thank you to Woodford Reserve who sent me this bottle for review. Now as with
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the other distillery series releases this one comes in a 375 milliliter bottle and is available
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for $59.99 and as soon as I heard about this release coming out I really wanted to try it
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because I couldn't think of a more perfect bourbon that would work well with a honey finish and I
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think the best way to explain that is I just feel like Woodford Reserve is always one of the most
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well-rounded bourbons in its price point it doesn't necessarily go too oaky or too dry or too sweet
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it's just perfectly rounded and I think they're really proud of that because I remember doing the
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tasting there a couple years back and that was kind of what they were showing. They pulled out the flavor wheel and they're like, oh, our bourbon hits all of these categories. It's not necessarily
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too, you know, spiky in any direction, which is why I think a honey finish on Woodford Reserve
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just sounds excellent. And I can't wait to give this a try. Now this one does come in at 90.4 proof
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which isn't cast strength, but it's a whole lot better than the 80 proof or even sometimes less
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that we sometimes see when we see honey flavored whiskey. Now again, this is not flavored. They
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actually finished the Woodford Reserve bourbon in used barrels that were used to age honey
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So these barrels initially came from Woodford Reserve and once they were dumped from the
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bourbon they were sent to a local beef farmer who used it to age some honey And then once that honey was dumped they sent the barrels back to Woodford Reserve and put more bourbon into it to finish in those barrels And as a self honey lover I just feel like this is going to be so good All right let go ahead and give
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this Woodford Reserve honey barrel finished bourbon a nose. Ooh, yeah, that is very honey
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forward, and I'm glad to see that. Like I said, I'm definitely biased towards like a honey finish
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on things. I just, I don't know. I just love honey. Now that being said, can I tell what kind of honey
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this is on the nose. No, not necessarily. It's definitely a darker and a richer honey. It's not
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necessarily like a super sweet like honey flavor, which is nice. I still want it to be a bourbon
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just with a bit of honey touch on the end. I don't feel like the sweetness is coming entirely
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from the honey. Now, this doesn't have an age statement, so I'm not sure, you know, how old
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this whiskey is, but I feel like a lot of the sweetness is coming from the actual corn that was
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used for this bourbon. It does have a zesty quality to it too. I'm not sure if it's like an orange
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peel or like a lemon zest but there's something a little fruity on this that I don't typically get
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on Woodford Reserve and it kind of reminds me of those Teddy Graham cookies I don't know if it's
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just like the honey glaze like on a graham cracker but something about that is what the nose is
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reminding me of. All right I've talked about this long enough I gotta go in for a taste. Cheers
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Yes that is exactly what I want that to be. I was really worried that the honey was going to be
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overwhelming on the palate it was going to be too sweet but this does none of that. It's actually a
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bit spicy. I think some of the bourbon characteristics are being highlighted by that
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honey element. And I feel like the honey aspect doesn't come out till a bit of the finish. Up
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front, this is still, you know, your typical Woodford Reserve. I think it has a bit more toastiness than I expect So maybe this is a little bit older than the standard Woodford Reserve release or maybe that just the result of the reused barrels that they you know put the whiskey back into after it had aged the honey but yeah once you get to the finish you get some of those raw honey notes it not
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again it's not super sweet not like a fake honey it's got like a darker note almost like honeycomb
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you know it's not necessarily as earthy as like what I would call a honeycomb note I think it
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just has more of like the richer raw honey element to it and to be perfectly honest you know would I
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be able to tell that this is honey finished? Probably not. I can tell there's something interesting going on with the barrel. Like I said, it's a bit more toasty, a little sweeter than usual
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but I don't get as prominent of a honey note as I kind of expected on this, especially based on
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the nose. On the palate, it's more of like a spicy sweetness, which is kind of weird, but it's not
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nearly like what you would expect it to be. But really, overall, it's really balanced and it has
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a really nice depth to it that I think standard Woodford Reserve, you know, just doesn't compare
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I'm really impressed with this, but now it's time to give it a rating. So if you're new here, my rating system is out of 8 because I love all things 8-bit
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So when you consider price and availability and proof and all things considered
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I gotta give Woodford Reserve Honey Barrel Finished Bourbon a 5 out of 8
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And I know that might be surprising because I did say some really great things about this whiskey. However, I have to consider this like a $120 bourbon because remember, it's a $60 bottle, but it's only a 375
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Once you double that and bring it up to 120, you're really competing for some premium bourbons on the market
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This one doesn't have an age statement. It does have the unique aspect of the finish and I definitely think it improves on standard Woodford Reserve
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But does this deserve the higher price point I don necessarily think so You know if this was for a regular sized bottle I think I would definitely give this a higher score Probably would even get like a 7 out of 8 at that point because it a really good bourbon I think I would much rather have some of their other distillery series like the Double
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Double Oak or some of their other releases like the Woodford Batch Proof or, you know, even some
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of their other, you know, limited series. This doesn't quite hit the mark and while it's good
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I don't think it deserves the price point. However, if you are at the distillery gift shop and you are
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a fan of Woodford, I think definitely give this a try if they have it to sample and maybe pick up
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a bottle if you're looking for something unique that you can only get there to bring back home with you. So while it pains me as a honey lover to not give this a perfect score, I just feel like
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I have to be fair when I'm considering price, and especially the fact that this is a very limited availability product. I mean, people are going to be seeking this out. I know people are going to
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be spending a lot on secondary for this. You know, you do you. I don't necessarily understand that
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hype, you know, with it just being a honey barrel. I know there have been some other ones from other
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distilleries that people think is incredible, and you know, I haven't had the chance to try it, but
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I'm sure it really is. But this one, you know, it is an improvement. It's just not quite, you know, wait in line for five hours worthy
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But yeah, that's my thoughts on Woodford Reserve Honey Barrel Finish. Now, I'm curious, are you guys fans of this one or are you fans of any other honey finished bourbons
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Leave me a comment down below. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you think it's a gimmick? Do you think it's actually additive
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I think in this case, it is additive. It's just how much additive is it compared to the price
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So thank you guys so much for watching. If you enjoyed the video, make sure to leave me a thumbs up. And if you want to come back for more, make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications down below
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Until next time, this has been Bourbon Bites. Cheers, and I'll see you next video
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