Gold Bar Black Double Cask is a straight bourbon made with a collaborating Texas distillery and bottled in San Francisco. It uses a mash bill of 80% Texas corn and 20% Oklahoma rye, is aged 3 to 6 years in new American oak, then finished in Napa Valley French oak wine barrels. It's bottled at 46% ABV and sells for around $50 to $65.
It melds weirdly with a gooey, molasses-like sweetness on the finish, which feels driven more clearly by the wine barrel finishing here than in the Original, for better or for worse.
Flavors of chocolate, dark fruits, tobacco, and smoke provide a unique combination that teases enjoyment, but it’s the inability of these flavors to come together in synergy combined with the medicinal note that steers it off course.