Orphan Barrel Fable & Folly

 

Orphan Barrel Fable & Folly – 90 proof

Appearance: copper in color, maybe like a burn auburn. It’s not as dark as I expected for a 14 year age statement. Very slow and fat legs. Very oily looking.

Nose: Oak, caramel, and butter cream frosting. There’s a very slight funk to this, so faint I can’t really put my finger on it. But my thought is since this is a blend of bourbons with a 14 year age statement, there’s probably some older bottles that have a real funky oaky profile that are contributing to this funk.

Pallet: Oak and some barrel char. There’s a definite sweetness, but it blends well with the earthiness of this. My pallet gets a slight numbing sensation similar to the effect of black pepper, but pepper isn’t in the flavor profile to me. There’s really not much of a spice to this at all really. There’s a creaminess to this that draws me in and makes me drink this dram rather quickly.

Finish: There’s a very light hug as it goes down. The main flavor that lingers is the oakiness of this. There’s also a slight leather profile that weaves in and out for minutes after the swallow. The finish really isn’t complex, but it’s pleasant.

Rating: 7.1/10

Overall: This is a very pleasant sipper. It’s has an outstanding nose and is very complex on the pallet, but the finish is lacking a little bit. I also think that just by bumping the proof up to around 100 even it would benefit significantly. I think it simply got a little too diluted. But even at 90 proof, this thing is very flavorful.

Behind the Bottle: Fable & Folly is a blend of bourbons that have been aged a minimum of 14 years, all from Stitzel-Weller. It’s a blend of remaining barrels from Barterhouse, Forged Oak, and Rhetoric series bottles, which were all individual releases from Orphan Barrel. While I haven’t had any of these individually, when you pull up the reviews for them, they’re each subpar. However, this Fable & Folly blend is well above average! I think this is a great example of how when you really know what you’re doing when it comes to blending, you can take a mix of subpar bottles and make something fantastic.

The age statement is a little strange to me, and indicates that this blend must have something other than just the barrels of the releases mentioned above, because Barterhouse has a 20 year age statement, Forged Oak has a 15 year age statement, and Rhetoric has no less than a 20 year age statement (and up to 25 years). So it would seem that the youngest whiskey in this should be 15 years old and they could use a 15 year age statement. So, I’m guessing there’s a little something else in this that isn’t mentioned that requires them to make a 14 year age statement. Additionally, the make up of Fable & Folly isn’t specified in percentages. This somewhat intrigues me because is it only 0.001% made up of that 25 year Rhetoric? Perhaps. But I will say that this bottle does have an older taste to it. So, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt they’re not cheating us.

This was the most I ever paid for a bottle of booze before. I’ve definitely had “better” bourbons for less, however, at $150, the unique story behind Orphan Barrel bottles is really what I was paying for. That said, this was still a really fun sip. More importantly it’s a beautiful bottle, and while I’m not big about showing off my collection or anything like this, it makes for a fun bourbon to share and tell someone about the story of Orphan Barrel products.

The Story to Get This Bottle: When we visited the Stitzel-Weller distillery, I got the opportunity to try a 1.5oz pour of this at their upstairs bar. I had looked forward to at least sampling a bottle of Orphan Barrel when we visited, and was optimistic that maybe they would have a bottle I could purchase for a reasonable price. As it turned out, they didn’t have bottles for sale, however…the staff divulged an inner secret that there was a liquor store nearby that was rumored to have a few bottles of Fable & Folly. Mission Accepted!

I headed to that liquor store later that day, and the employee I spoke with said, “No. We’ve had two bottles sitting on the shelf for over a month and then they both sold yesterday and all of a sudden I have a bunch of people interested in them.” Damnit! So close!

At this point, I was really determined to find my own bottle. I searched around online and found a couple local liquor stores nearby that carried it at one point, but didn’t currently have any on the shelf. I started looking online for bottles at liquor stores near some family members in other states, and while I found a couple, I didn’t quite want to pull the trigger and ask them to drive an hour or so away to pick me up a bottle of booze. This is my adventure(…burden) and I won’t bestow it upon(…encumber) them as well.

Fast forward 1 month and I was visiting some family in Austin, TX for the weekend. We had a great weekend and on the last night we were there, I decided to look online at some of the local liquor stores for shits and grins. What’d’ya know!? A liquor store only 1.5 miles from my wife’s grandparents’ house said they had NINETEEN bottles of Fable & Folly. Valhalla? Is that you?

I went there first thing the next morning to pick up the bottle I had been hunting for the past month. I expected to walk in and go straight to their case, spot the bottle I wanted, and walk out with it (after paying of course…I’m not a monster). However, to my surprise, it wasn’t there. So, I asked some employees and they checked into it and said, “Hmmm…we remember having these a few weeks ago for a big bourbon sale they did (why don’t liquor stores near me get rare allocated bourbons and just have a “sale” for them? But I digress…), but don’t know what happened to the remaining bottles.” (It’s not like it’s a $30 bottle or something, I don’t know how you just loose $2000+ in bourbon, but whatever.) So they took my phone number and said they would look around and call some other employees to see if they could figure out where they disappeared to (the employees were a little scared at this point that this many bottles of a $150 bourbon disappeared). About 2 hours later I received a call saying they located the box of bottles in their conference room (I’m sure they enjoyed a bottle at their last staff meeting…at least I’d want a boss that was that cool) and they had my bottle in hand. 😊

1 | Disgusting | So bad I poured it out.

2 | Poor | I wouldn’t consume by choice.

3 | Bad | Multiple flaws.

4 | Sub-par | Not bad, but many things I’d rather have.

5 | Good | Good, just fine.

6 | Very Good | A cut above.

7 | Great | Well above average

8 | Excellent | Really quite exceptional.

9 | Incredible | An all time favorite

10 | Perfect | Perfect