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Sometimes you need to break things (or, casks) apart so you can put them back together.

It was in 2018 when Bill Straub and Bob D'Antoni, both Whiskey enthusiasts, founded the Four Gate Whiskey Company in Kentucky and launched their mission to release très petits batches of unique combinations of Whiskey and finish barrels. And boy did they mean it when they said unique. Partnering with Kelvin Cooperage, a family-owned barrel supplier founded in 1963 in Scotland and currently based in Louisville, the combinations of quality Whiskey blends and used barrels they put together are so exotic it almost seems like you didn't read it right. We guess it's like those funny-looking couples you'd never put together, but they just work.

For their fourth release, Four Gate Whiskey quite literally thought outside the box. Together with William Hornaday at Kelvin, they crafted a series of medium toast casks, a series of #2 char casks and one of #4 char casks. After the job was done, they broke them all apart and rebuilt them, mixing the toasted staves and #2 char staves on some and toasted with #4 char staves on others. Meet the first ever, Split Stave barrels. Now, fill them with a blend of 5.5YO Kentucky Straight Bourbon and a 12YO Kentucky Straight Bourbon, let them rest for five months and you get Four Gate Split Stave by Kelvin. Uncut and unfiltered at 115.6 proof, there were only 2,700 bottles of this unique Bourbon released.

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