An Apple Brandy Finish Showdown!

Bardstown Bourbon Company Collaboration w/ Copper & Kings vs Copper & Kings Bourbon

Copper & Kings is a distillery in Louisville, KY that does NOT make bourbon. Instead, they make brandy. This makes them uniquely original in the middle of bourbon country. They have done well at leveraging their specialty to make their name known to bourbon lovers.

Copper & Kings has allowed various distilleries to use their brandy barrels to finish whiskey in, but probably none more than Bardstown Bourbon Company. BBC and C&K started their collaboration in 2017, and since then, BBC has released 5 different expressions finished using C&K barrels, and C&K has released a blended bourbon finished in their C&K barrels with a majority of the blend being bourbon from BBC.

Naturally, this makes a great opportunity to compare a couple whiskies finished in C&K barrels and see “who did it better.” So today, I’m comparing the following two expressions:

• BBC Copper & Kings Apple Brandy Finish - 11yr MGP bourbon finished in C&K apple brandy barrels for 20 months
• Copper & Kings Bourbon Finished in American Apple Brandy Barrels (I previously reviewed this. See C&K Bourbon review) - A blend of 5-10 year Kentucky straight bourbons finished in C&K apple brandy barrels for 12 months

Bourbz Review #112: BBC Copper & Kings Apple Brandy Finish

COST: MSRP was $125 for 750mL bottle (I’m reviewing a sample)

AGE: 11 yr MGP bourbon finished for 20 months in C&K apple brandy barrels

MASH BILL: 75% corn, 21% rye, 4% malted barley

PROOF: 120

APPEARANCE: Deep, reddish mahogany (1.8), extremely oily with fat, slooowww legs.

NOSE: Heavy caramel and vanilla, cinnamon sticks and fresh grated nutmeg, a touch of clove, and a lemon peel twist. Maybe it’s the time of year, but this has characters of Wasil or spiced, warm apple cider. On second nosing, I pick up on more sweetness: more vanilla, some milk chocolate, and sweet oak. This is very well balanced, deep, and complex.

PALATE: This lands like biting into a crisp Red Delicious apple covered in slightly burnt homemade caramel. There’s a healthy bite of cinnamon and ground ginger. With some chewing, more apple shows up along with a touch of orange blossom honey and toasted oak. This is full bodied and has a thick mouthfeel.

FINISH: A long, dry finish with tannic oak and cinnamon up front and a slight sweetness in the background in the form of brown sugar and vanilla. Sadly, I lost the apple notes here.

RATING: 8.1/10

VALUE: 6.9/10 (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: The nose on this is an explosion of flavors and is quite intoxicating. The palate really pushes the apple notes and makes this feel like a perfect fall treat! The finish was a little lacking through. I really wish the apple and caramel notes lasted well into the finish.

Bourbz Review #113: Copper & Kings Bourbon Finished in American Apple Brandy Barrels

COST: $56 for 750mL bottle

AGE: 64% 5 yr Bardstown Bourbon Company, 24% 10 yr Barton, 12% 15 yr Heaven Hill, finished for 12 months in C&K apple brandy casks

MASH BILL: derived based on the above to be 65.5% corn, 28.6% rye, 5.9% malted barley

PROOF: 111

APPEARANCE: Light red, brandy color (1.5), oily looking but not nearly as much as the BBC expression.

NOSE: Much brighter and lighter than the BBC expression with notes of fresh sliced apples, floral notes, vanilla, and a touch of burnt caramel. I get a pastry note with a buttery pie crust along with the apple making me think a little of a fried apple pie. There’s a light combination of spicey oak, sweet ginger, and black pepper that provide a good bit of spiced depth for the sweeter, lighter notes that are more front and center. This is a very different experience than the BBC expression.

PALATE: There’s a lot more apple here than the BBC expression, but it is nicely balanced by notes of vanilla ice cream with a caramel drizzle, a little candy cinnamon (think Red Hots), and a hint of clove. With some chewing I’m getting notes of honey and cherry syrup as well. This has a viscous mouthfeel, but a thinner than the BBC expression.

FINISH: A medium to long finish with significantly more apple than the BBC expression. There is a lot of apple and vanilla right at first, but it develops a tannic dryness and highlights rye spice and brown sugar primarily in the finish. I occasionally get some oak notes but overall, it’s just a mild spice with some pops of apple.

RATING: 7.6/10

VALUE: 9.1/10 (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: This is wildly different than the BBC expression! They’re like the yin and yang to each other. This expression is more like a late spring, early summer sip with refreshing crisp apple, floral notes, lighter on the spice and bigger bright sweetness. The apple is much more pronounced from start to finish.

Final Thoughts

If you go back and look at my previous Copper & Kings Bourbon review, not much has changed. While I did rate it a little lower this time around, I think that was less due to the whiskey itself and more due to the time of year it is. With it being fall at the time of this review, the BBC expression just resonates with me more right now with the rich apple/caramel sweetness, lots more baking spice, and with a generally more fall like profile. The Copper & Kings Bourbon is still fantastic, but it has a lot more bright fruit sweetness that makes me think more spring/summer time sipping. That said, if you’re looking for the apple brandy profile to shine through the most, the Copper & Kings Bourbon reigns supreme here. It has fantastic bold apple notes throughout the entire experience while the BBC expression kind of lost the apple note by the finish.

Both are great bottles that you can’t go wrong with. And more importantly, both of these expressions make me look forward to checking out Copper & Kings distillery next time I’m in Louisville!

As far as “who did it better…” Hmmm…that’s honestly a tough call. Obviously, by the numbers, the BBC expression hit better for me tonight. But in the grand scheme of things, these two expressions are more in the noise of each other as far as the ratings go, both great sipping bourbons with very different profiles, yet each highlighting American apple brandy barrels.

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, Eagle Rare

7 | Great | Baker's 7yr SiB, 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