2XO 'The Tribute Blend' Bourbon Whiskey

The Tribute Blend is Dixon Dedman's thank-you to his parents and the path they paved for him — the third release in 2XO's Icon Series, a line of one-off small-batch blends each named for something in the blender's life. Dedman is the man who resurrected his great-great-grandfather's Kentucky Owl in 2014 and made it a cult, grew up in the test kitchen of his family's James Beard-winning Beaumont Inn, and launched 2XO — "Two Times Oak" — in late 2022 around one idea: every expression gets a second round of oak. The Tribute Blend marries two proprietary Kentucky mash bills, a high-rye 35% bourbon and a moderate-rye 18% bourbon; the high-rye is double-barreled into new charred oak at both #3 and #4 char for nine months to a year, the extra wood building sweetness to balance the spice, then blended and bottled at 104 proof. It took Gold at both the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition and the 2024 ASCOT Awards. 2XO describes a viscous, rich mouthfeel moving from initial sweetness on the front to savory notes mid-palate and finishing with a muted but lingering spice that hangs around longer than expected. Expect caramel, brown sugar, and vanilla on the nose over toasted oak and rye pepper, opening into a dense palate of butterscotch, dried fruit, cinnamon, and cedar, with the char sweetness rounding the rye's edges, finishing long and gently spicy. Drinkhacker tracked every Icon release as a must-watch story; this is one of the gentler ones. Neat.

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