What’s happening in wine and whiskey this week:

This Week’s Unicorn Review Stories

🥃 Susannah Skiver Barton spoke to Bill Lumsden, master distiller for Ardbeg and Glenmorangie, about his whisky philosophy, penchant for experimentation, and that one time an Ardbeg fan wanted to kill him.

New Bottle Releases

Michter’s 10 Year Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Rye (SRP $210)

Michter’s 10 Year Rye is back for 2026. This year’s release, like past ones, is a single barrel expression that was bottled at 92.8 proof, and is made from an undisclosed mashbill that likely falls somewhere just above or at the 51 percent required rye grain. Look for flavors like baking spice, citrus, and some floral notes, with a sweetness and some tannic character from a decade in oak.

Very Olde St. Nick Immaculata (SRP $260)

This is the second release of Preservation Distillery’s Very Olde St. Nick Immaculata, following the initial 2023 release. The 2026 edition is a blend of just three barrels bottled at 118.2 proof: 10-year-old and 19-year-old bourbon sourced from another distillery, and 8.5-year-old wheated bourbon distilled at Preservation. Look for notes of toasted almonds, espresso beans, crème brûlée, dried apricot, fresh blueberries, tobacco, and some black pepper spice on the palate.

Unicorn Whiskey Pick of the Week

Barrell Bourbon Batch 38 (SRP $85)

Over the years, Louisville blending house Barrell Craft Spirits has become one of the best in the business, sourcing barrels of whiskey from distilleries around the country, blending them, and sometimes giving them unique and innovative cask finishes. Batch 38 of the core expression, Barrell Bourbon, was just released, combining whiskey from four different states into another cask-strength blend of straight bourbons that proves why BCS is a name that you should be familiar with.

The specs of Batch 38 are as follows: it’s a blend of straight bourbons distilled in Kentucky (12-year), Tennessee (12 and 15-year), Indiana (9 and 10-year), and Maryland (8-year). It has a derived mashbill (meaning the mashbill derived from all the bourbons in the blend) of 79% corn, 17% rye, and 4% malted barley, and the whiskey was bottled at cask strength of 116.96 proof (58.48% ABV). The sources of the whiskeys are not revealed, but you might be able to pick some likely suspects based on the source states and ages of each component… or perhaps not. For example, the Maryland component seems like it could be from Baltimore’s Sagamore Spirit, but that is just speculation.

The result is another high-quality bourbon from BCS that is full of classic flavors and sips pretty easily at less than 117 proof. Dark, tannic oak notes are present as you sip, which should not be a surprise given the ages of the whiskeys in the blend. This is a pleasant experience, however, and not overpowering, allowing flavors like vanilla, maple, caramel, honey, dark plum to shine, along with black pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg notes.

How do you rate which batch of Barrell Bourbon is the best? The only way to do that is to try them all side by side, an achievable but pretty overwhelming task to undertake. The other option is to not really worry about which one reigns supreme, and just enjoy each batch on its own merits. That’s what I would advise here, because Batch 38 is a solid one—and it comes in a special bottle with a red, white, and blue label to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, if you’re feeling a little patriotic as the 4th of July approaches.