Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon Review [In Depth]
Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon
by: ALEX WANG
Founder, writer
Founder, writer
Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon Details
Distillery: Four Roses
Type & Region: Bourbon, Kentucky, USA
Alcohol: 50%
Composition: 60% corn, 35% rye, 5% barley
Aged: 7-9 years
Color: 1.2/2.0 on the color scale (chestnut, oloroso sherry)
Price: $50
From the company website:
One of three new single barrels, this bottle’s rich red fruits bring a vibrant sweetness, while delicate oak and smooth vanilla add depth. A hint of brown sugar enhances the richness, producing a soft, long-lasting finish. It’s a bourbon crafted for those who appreciate a complex addition to elevate bourbon-forward cocktails or those who enjoy their bourbon neat or on the rocks.Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon overview
Four Roses is stubborn…legendarily stubborn. While everyone else is branching out, adding finishes, adding new brands, and all sorts of stuff, they keep doing the same things, stay in their lane, don’t care what anyone else does, and are… predictable. Zero rye whiskey, zero wheated bourbon (or anything besides rye and barley as the minor grains), and zero fucks given.
In a minor miracle, Four Roses finally decided to mix it up just a little bit by expanding their lineup of available single barrel bourbons to include a few more mashbill and yeast combinations.
For years, Four Roses only released the OBSV mashbill and yeast mix for everyday consumption, leaving every other mashbill and yeast combination to the very limited and expensive Private Selection single barrel program. You know…the program where you have to know someone and bring at least $100 and pray that you can get one. Yes, that also includes me.
Now, they’ve graciously expanded to include OBSF (herbal yeast), OESK (slight spice), and OESO (rich fruit). As a reminder, B means 35% rye in the mashbill and E means 20% rye in the mashbill, and E means 20% rye in the mashbill.
Unlike the Private Selects, which are cask strength and generally around 9-12 years old, these more affordable versions are all 50% ABV and 7-9 years old. So, the trade off is a younger bourbon that is not cask strength, although it’s not necessarily that far off from cask strength in some cases when many of Private Selects are 53-59% ABV already.
As a reminder, this review covers the OESO mashbill and yeast strain. The “O” yeast is for “rich fruit and vanilla” and “E” is 20% rye mashbill. I have to look that up every time because I can’t seem to remember what those things mean.
An important disclaimer, your mileage with this review may vary because this review covers a particular single barrel. The bottle that you see / buy will most likely come from a different barrel, so I cannot guarantee that your experience will be the same as mine. That is the double edged blessing and curse of single barrel whiskey. It is what it is.
I don’t think many of you have been exposed to the OESO yeast and mashbill strain, so hopefully this is something exciting and we’ll find out in this Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon review.
This sample was provided to me at no cost. All opinions are still my own.
As an FYI, I bought and use these Glencairn glasses for everything (they’re the best): Glencairn Crystal Whiskey Glass Set of 6, Set of 4, Set of 2, or just one. Full transparency, this is an affiliate link, so I may earn a commission if you buy this or something else from Amazon.
Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon smell
I smell caramel and creamy vanilla, partially dried maraschino cherry, toasted oak, baked red apple, cinnamon, allspice, dried orange peel, and a little caraway seed. This Four Roses OESO Single Barrel bourbon smells fantastic. I don’t know if this is the power of suggestion, but I get the vanilla thing with this…although I also get vanilla with most bourbons. Like the OBSK, there’s also a nice and mature woodiness, which is great for 7-9 years in oak.
There also are nice cherry scents nicely wrapped up in the oak. The oak has a nice deepness and expressiveness, without feeling overbearing, and overall the scents have good fullness and expressiveness.
After swirling and 15 minutes of rest, there’s caramel / creme brulee, creamy vanilla, roasted oak, dried cherry and orange, pineapple, allspice, fennel, cinnamon, and a little tobacco and earthy pumpernickel.
Again, this smells great. There’s surprisingly good richness and expressiveness across the board, especially the oak, as if it were an older bourbon and with excellent barrel selection. It has that pleasant leap out of the glass that’s a lot of fun to smell, as is everything else.
Overall, this is very well balanced, developed, and interesting – top notch stuff that isn’t as easy to come by as you’d think.
Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon taste and aftertaste
To start, I taste caramel, dried cherry, vanilla, roasted oak, cinnamon, effervescent allspice, baked red apple, tobacco, and a little dried grassines. This tastes great, although at the moment it’s a bit more oaky than I’d like. There’s also a lot of this effervescent spice that provides an interesting twist.
Even at “just” 100 proof, the flavors have great fullness, range, and roundness. Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon is already delicious, so I’m really curious how it opens up with “chewing”.
With intense “chewing” I get caramel, creamy vanilla, dried red apple and cherry, roasted oak, caramel nougat, allspice, cinnamon, coconut candy (like the candy Mounds), and some earthy caraway seed.
Oh yeah, “chewing” unleashes the sweetness and fruitiness, better balancing the oak and opening up the range of flavors and overall expressiveness. The oak still has a prominent, but very enjoyable and enhancing presence, that makes the whole experience even better. A little more fullness and pop would push this really close to “Top Shelf+”, which even Small Batch Limited Editions haven’t reached for me yet.
The finish leaves toasted caramel and dried cherry, vanilla, and oak fading into lingering allspice, oak, caramel, and vanilla. It’s really nice and surprisingly fresh.
This is a really well rounded sweet, fruity, woody, and spicy bourbon that delivers a fantastic experience, really well done.
I’ve unfortunately lost some Glencairn’s while in transit, and that made me very sad. So, I wised up and bought this Glencairn Travel Case that comes also comes with 2 glasses so I don’t need to worry so much about them breaking. I think it’s great, and I think you’ll love it too.
Seriously, if you already have glasses, protect them.
Four Roses OESO Single Barrel Bourbon Rating
Four Roses OESO Single Barrel (or at least this particular barrel) is incredibly well done and I am very impressed. I’m a spirits curmudgeon who’s hard to please and very critical, but I am actually very pleased with drinking this. This feels like a borderline Private Selection, and for half the price and exponentially more availability for everyone.
Now does OESO feel like “rich fruit and vanilla”? Yeah I guess so, although to be honest I’m not good at tasting these and stating a particular mashbill and yeast. Can anyone even do that…even the people at Four Roses? I would be skeptical more than a handful of people could…but definitely not me. From my experience, most bourbons have a lot of vanilla, so that part isn’t noteworthy.
The “rich fruit” – I guess yes, but it’s also not necessarily that unique or stand out. Nonetheless, this is an excellent bourbon, but I don’t think too much about these mashbill and yeast combinations. I just want it to be delicious and worth drinking, and it is definitely that.
I don’t know where and how Four Roses is pulling these excellent barrels for this release, although it’s possible that Four Roses provided exceptionally good barrels for media samples so people like me would write glowing reviews. I haven’t bought one off the shelf so I don’t know, but I at least know that this media sample is so good.
Like I’ve written in my other reviews, I cannot guarantee that the one you get will be similar or as good as the one I reviewed here. I hope it is, but I can’t promise anything when it comes to single barrels. If it turns out that Four Roses manipulated the media samples with exceptionally good barrels…then shame on them for doing that.
But at least from my experience, this is amazing and easily worth buying for $50. In fact, go buy one now if you can because it’s some of the best bourbon you can buy for $50, and even under $100. There’s a lot of ok to bad value out there, but this is on the far opposite side of the spectrum and is absolutely worth it.
Oh jeez I really hope that the bottles on the shelves are as good as this one.
Meet the Author: Alex
I have far too much fun writing about whiskey and singlehandedly running The Whiskey Shelf to bring you independent, honest, and useful reviews, comparisons, and more. I’m proudly Asian American and can speak Cantonese, Mandarin, and some Japanese.
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Shattered glass really sucks, so if you’re on the move, this Glencairn-like stainless steel snifter glass should survive your travels. Full transparency, this is an Amazon affiliate link, so I may earn a commission if you buy this or something else from Amazon.
BrüMate NOS’R, Double-Wall Stainless Steel Whiskey Nosing Glass – 7oz (Matte Black)
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