Orphan Barrel Indigo’s Hour

Cost: $249 for 750 mL bottle

Age: 18 years

Mash Bill: 68% corn, 28% rye, 4% malted barley

Proof: 90

The latest release from the makers of some of the most intriguing 90 proof bottles out there, Indigo’s Hour by Orphan Barrel! This one comes with an 18 year age statement and certainly will make you say, “90 proof? $250? WTF?” There’s a whole slew of people that on the basis of that alone will say “Hell no,” and this review probably isn’t for them. But for the rest of you, even if you’re skeptical but say, “Okay, I’ll bite” I think you’ll enjoy this review if for nothing else the intrigue that comes behind this bottle having ties to Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Reviewed neat in a Glencairn.

Appearance: Dark golden amber (1.3), oily with fat but fast legs.

Nose: For a 90 proof pour this is robust stuff! Southern butter pecan cake with vanilla buttercream frosting hits me right away. There’s a healthy amount of oak, but to my surprise and pleasure it’s not overwhelming. That oak is almost tied at the hip to notes of slightly burnt brown sugar and a sharp spice that provides a solid backdrop for the sweeter notes. Towards the end of the nose there’s a red fruit sweetness that’s coming in as a rich jam of plums, cherries, and strawberries.

Palate: It’s a little on the thinner side, but is surprisingly creamy. It’s like a caramel honey cake with fall spices, or maybe even a carrot cake with the mix of spices that I’m picking up. Notes of caramel and honey dominate the front end of the palate. There’s a butteriness that is accompanied by vanilla bean, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove.

Finish: The finish is short. It’s dominated by sweet oak, a little barrel char, vanilla and cinnamon. The oak is certainly the dominate note though. While the nose and palate didn’t show the amount of oak one might expect from an 18 year age statement, it’s there in the finish.

Rating: 7.1/10

Value: 1.8/10 (this value is based on a ratio of the $/mL to the rating above compared to this same ratio for all other r/Bourbon reviews I’ve made and normalized to 10)

Overall: Awesome nose, solid palate, weak finish. That about sums this one up. The sweet notes on the nose and the palate are very defined and far exceed any expectations I would have for a 90 proof bourbon, but the finish was definitely 90 proof through and through. I compared this side by side to a splash of the last little bit of Fable & Folly that I have, and while I rated Fable & Folly a 7.1 as well about a 1.5 years ago, I think I would give the nod to Indigo’s Hour in the tie breaker. The nose and palate are just a lot richer and sweeter than Fable & Folly which I like, but Fable & Folly is more consistent from start to finish.

But the elephant in the room…$249! Is it worth it!? Based on the tasting review alone, ABSOLUTELY not! There are some bangers out there that (for me) score better than this and can be had for less than $100, and a few less than $50! However, to me, there’s a lot more to this than just the bourbon alone (and the bottle art…because let’s be real, no one makes better looking bottles than Orphan Barrel). The fact we’re getting to try something from old barrels that may have never seen the light of day otherwise is just really cool to me! And something else I really enjoy about Orphan Barrel is the stories behind the bottle…

Behind the Bottle

A big reason I love Orphan Barrel is the fact that they’re finding “forgotten” or “abandoned” casks of whiskey around the world and give them new life and bring them to us to try. Sometimes it’s through blends, other times it’s just simply bottling up that long lost nectar and making it available to you. Part of what intrigues me about this is trying to piece together what exactly it is that makes up some of these Orphan Barrel offerings. In some cases, they’re extremely open and tell you exactly the where, what, why, and when regarding the distillery and the casks. But in the case of Indigo’s Hour, I had to do a little (lot) of sleuthing to try and come up with what seems logical. So, here’s the best I came up with for what’s truly inside this bottle. I’ll do my best to include any links to sources or let you know when I’m making an assumption of my own.

On the Indigo’s Hour bottle it says on the side label that it “…pays homage to the endless fields and rich stories of Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, where our whiskey is distilled, aged, and bottled.” Note that it doesn’t say “respectively.” Could just be that they needed to cut down on the word count, but it could also be an important hint and that the inclusion of the word “respectively” would have made it a false statement.

Below the UPC on the same side label, it says “Produced in Indiana and Kentucky. Blended and Bottled by Orphan Barrel Whiskey Co., Tullahoma, TN.” I find these two sentences particularly interesting for the following reasons:

• The word “produced” is used instead of “distilled.” Most bottles I own state “Distilled in…” not “produced in…” In fact, even Fable & Folly says “Distilled in Indiana and Kentucky.” So, what exactly does “produced” mean? It’s clearly intentional.
• The statement “Blended and bottled by…” instead of simply “Bottled by…” make me think that this is not “batched,” but is actually a blend of bourbons from different distillers.

Now, for all those that see “Bottled with Pride at Tullahoma” on the other side label and immediately say, “Oh. It’s just juice from Dickel they’re charging tons of money for.” Simply put, you’re wrong. There’s nothing at all that makes me think there’s any whiskey produced in Tennessee in this bottle. Dickel is owned by Diageo, and Orphan Barrel happens to be based there, also owned by Diageo, and from what I understand, Orphan Barrel uses the bottling facilities of Dickel. That does NOT mean that this is a Dickel product. I have 100% confidence this is only bottled in TN and there’s no TN whiskey in it.

So, how about a press release? Diageo made a multichannel news release that provided some other hints, but maybe only makes it more confusing when combining it with what’s on the bottle. In this press release they stated:

• The mash bill is “a carefully selected mashbill of 68% corn, 28% rye, and 4% malt.”
• When it talks about the label design, it provides a few more hints:
• The butterfly on the front represents Indiana, “where this rare whiskey is distilled.”
• The Witches Tree in Louisville, KY is featured on the label, which is “just a few minutes away from where Indigo’s Hour was aged.”
• (And it denotes that the landscape represents the area around Tullahoma, TN, “where Indigo’s Hour was bottled.” So, again, those that think there’s Dickel in here…just stop.)

I find the mash bill intriguing. A high rye 68/28/4 mash bill is NOT one of the many mash bills that MGP is known for, and I don’t think there’s another distiller in Indiana that could make enough bourbon 18 years ago that would have been procured for another distiller or NDP in Kentucky in the 2005-2006 time frame. However, they are pretty explicit that the butterfly represents Indiana, “where this rare whiskey is distilled…” Now it could be that this was a “custom” mash bill that MGP made for someone… Let’s dig into that a little bit.

Who do we know that uses a high rye 68/28/4 mash bill? Bulleit. This is where it gets interesting!

Let’s take a minute to look at Bulleit’s history:

• Bulleit was founded in 1987 and has announced from the beginning they use a distinctive high rye bourbon recipe that is well known to be 68% corn, 28% rye, 4% malted barley. (ref Bulleit)
• Seagram bought the Bulleit brand in 1997. (Sorry for the Wiki reference, but it was the most succinct. This was corroborated by multiple other sources but referred to it more loosely as between 1995 and 2000.)
• When Bulleit first started, it contracted the Ancient Age distillery (Buffalo Trace) to make its distillate. After Seagram purchased Bulleit, the distillate started being made by Four Roses in 1999. (ref Bourbonr) Note: Seagram owned Four Roses at this time.
• At the end of 2000/early 2001, Seagram sold all its beverage subsidies including Bulleit and Four Roses. It sold Bulleit to Diageo, and Kirin Brewery Company ultimately acquired Four Roses. Diageo didn’t want to mess up what Bulleit had going so it extended the distilling contract for Four Roses to continue production of Bulleit’s distillate. (ref Bourbonr and Dillford’s Guide)
• Four Roses was believed to be the distiller for Bulleit until late 2000s. The statements on this from Diageo changed over the years and started creating questions around 2008 about who was actually distilling for Bulleit. (ref Chuck Cowdery)
• The Chuck Cowdery Blog discusses the Bulleit story which mostly corroborates all of the above. But this particular article got me thinking about the business aspect of all of this. The moment Diageo acquired Bulleit in 2000, while it immediately contracted Four Roses to continue what it was doing, wouldn’t Diageo have wanted to find the best deal? When Four Roses and Bulleit were both under Seagram, that was an obvious choice. But now that they’re not under the same umbrella, Diageo would likely want to find where their best deal is…

Diageo in the early 2000s was a powerhouse, not dissimilar to today. They had major contract distillation agreements with multiple companies. So, it would seem like a natural business move to see what other companies they've worked with already could produce for them and their newly acquired Bulleit brand at the best rate. What I imagine this could look like is Diageo purchasing small batches of bourbon with a specific 68/28/4 high rye mash bill to allow to age for some time to see who they want to go with after the Four Roses contract expires. If they started this in 2001, they would have had 4-6 year old bourbon as early as 2005-2006…which is 18 years ago… Diageo owned the Stitzel-Weller distillery at this time, so that was a natural place to store these “sample” contract batches to age before testing them towards the end of their contract with Four Roses…(oh, and by the way, the Stitzel-Weller Distillery is only 8 minutes from The Witches Tree.) Then, around the mid-2000s, Diageo asked Four Roses if they can increase their production for Bulleit, to which Four Roses said no because business is blowing up for them now and they need all the production they can get for their personal brand because their new owner, Kirin, has been effectively marketing them and has all of Japan wanting Four Roses. (This was a thing, not speculation. It's discussed in one of the articles I linked above.) So now, Diageo purchased those 68/28/4 barrels in 2001 time frame, and now around 2005/2006 reality is setting in that they will not be using Four Roses forever, so they purchase a few more 68/28/4 barrels (this is key for how they get to an 18 year age statement for Indigo's Hour).

So, fast forward to today. Bulleit is doing well. They have their own production facility and are distilling their own whiskey. But what about those barrels that I’m suggesting Diageo procured back in the early and mid-2000s when shopping for a new contract distiller for Bulleit? I’m guessing they had some barrels from Four Roses, Jim Beam, Barton, etc. But MGP was a big player back then too, so I’m guessing Diageo reached out to them as well and had a few 68/28/4 barrels from MGP as well. Now, all these years later, some of those barrels were “forgotten” or just didn’t have a use today and they never got used up – they were never intended for bottling and selling, it was a trial stuff. Therefore, since Diageo owns Bulleit and Orphan Barrel, Diageo turned them over to Orphan Barrel because it’s a perfect fit for the Orphan Barrel program! So what I’m proposing is, while the story for the label is good and all, they only focus on the distillate being distilled in Indiana because that helps with the story they’re trying to tell – three states, three individual parts of the whiskey making process. It's not incorrect, it's just not the whole story.

So here’s my hot take: based on the labeling below the UPC, I propose that this is blend of distillate from both Kentucky and Indiana, with a minimum age of 18 years (and a max age of around 23 years), that were all contracted as 68% corn, 28% rye, and 4% malted barley for Bulleit back in the day. It was all aged in Kentucky, specifically at the Stitzel-Weller Distillery, and then it was all recently acquired by Orphan Barrel and sent to Tullahoma, TN to be blended and bottled. Thus, explaining the “Produced in Indiana and Kentucky. Blended and Bottled by Orphan Barrel Whiskey Co., Tullahoma, TN.”

There’s my take on it! I did reach out to Orphan Barrel with a few questions to help confirm some of my assumptions and clarify the statements on the bottle, however, as of this writing I have not heard back from them. I’ll update this post if I do.


1 | Disgusting | ...I've not subjected myself to this level

2 | Poor | Balcones Lineage

3 | Bad | High West Double Rye, Jefferson's Ocean 28

4 | Sub-par | Weller's SR, Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select

5 | Good | Buffalo Trace, Sazerac Rye, Green River Wheated

6 | Very Good | Blanton's, Holladay Bourbons, Widow Jane Decadence

7 | Great | Baker's 7yr SiB, WhistlePig PiggyBack SiB, 1792 BiB

8 | Excellent | Most ECBP batches, JD SiB BiB, High West MWND Act 11

9 | Incredible | Barrel Bourbon Batch T8ke, BBC DS #7, Four Roses OESQ

10 | Perfect | Found North Batch 08