Jefferson's Ocean Aged At Sea Voyage No. 23 Bourbon Whiskey

Jefferson's Ocean spends months on a ship — barrels lashed on deck, crossing the equator four times, stopping at dozens of ports — and The Whiskey Jug scored it 91 and called the finish the most unique in bourbon. Trey Zoeller, whose family has made whiskey in Kentucky since the 1790s, founded Jefferson's in 1997 and started Ocean in 2012 with a friend's shark-research vessel, OCEARCH; the theory is that the ship's motion keeps the whiskey moving in and out of the wood while sea air and heat push maturation, and the salt on the finish says the sea got in. Voyage 23 is Kentucky straight bourbon aged six to eight years on land, loaded onto a container ship for a voyage of several months and dozens of ports, then bottled at 90 proof; check your bottle for the voyage's route. The Whiskey Jug: bourbon spice, caramel, vanilla, brown sugar, cherry, orange zest, dark honey, and oak on the nose; spice and dark fruit over caramel with cinnamon, cherry, oak, and a subtle brine coating on the palate; and a medium-long finish of caramel, wood, salt, and vanilla — sweet and tart at once. Thirty-One Whiskey found the same salted-caramel signature. Honest note: the concept sounds like marketing and every serious reviewer who's tasted it against a land-aged control admits the difference is real — the bourbon that makes a great story and a better Old Fashioned. Neat or on a cube. Ocean, Voyage 23.

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