There is no doubt that Barrell Craft Spirits has enjoyed a meteoric growth over the past few years. In challenging the typical conventions of blending, they have clearly leaned on an incredible team of blenders that have made barrel selection an art and whose palates have changed the world of whiskey with their stunning and often groundbreaking flavors. A key personality behind this work has been Nic Christiansen – a now seasoned blender that has helped make some of your favorite releases from the brand a reality. We sat down with her to learn more about her spirits journey, approach to producing new flavors and passion for the space.
Before You Started Blending, Where did You get Your Start in Food and Beverage?
I have always had a passion for food, cooking, and flavor. However, I went to school for graphic design, and originally thought that was kind of my creative outlet – I did enjoy it, but I kept finding this pull towards the culinary world. So I decided to pursue that route and tried to figure out which direction I wanted to go; becoming a chef was my goal. I moved to Louisville from Cincinnati in 2011 and when I moved to Louisville, I was still pursuing the culinary world, but I ended up working at a bourbon bar restaurant. While in Cincinnati, I was mostly a beer drinker, so I didn't know a lot about bourbon or the broader whiskey category. And for that reason, at that time period, I thought it was all the same. I quickly learned that it was definitely not all the same, and it was also very exciting and had a ton of nuanced flavor.
I just fell in love with bourbon. So, at the end of my shift in the kitchen, every night, I would go to the bar near the bartender, and ask them to , “Pour me something I've never tried, and tell me about it.” And I did that after every shift until I realized I wanted to work with spirits, and more specifically I wanted to work with bourbon. I wanted to figure out how to use liquid as flavor and create these things. I also loved the stories behind the products, and the engagement with people – you have that direct relationship with people and it can be very conversational. “Try this, what do you think?” And then I get that feedback, and then you're like, “Okay, so if you like this, you will probably also like that.” And so I started making those flavor connections pretty quickly, starting with bourbon on its own, and then onto cocktails, wine, beer – every kind of beverage and flavor.
Before I started with Barrell Craft Spirits, I was a beverage director at a restaurant, Butchertown Grocery, and had a very large beverage program with a big wine program, beer program, coffee program; we even created our own blend of coffee beans with a local coffee roaster in town. We were also building a really big private barrel program for whiskey. Through this, I was able to go out to distilleries to pick barrels, tasting whiskey in rick houses or wherever you were. I just felt this gravitation towards working with whiskey again – nothing really beats drinking whiskey out of a barrel. As an aside, I'm kind of partial – I like the cold rick houses, because it's cold, you're miserable, and you can't feel your hands, but then you take a sip of this whiskey, and it's kind of a magical thing.
How did those Experiences Lead Your Focus on Barrell Craft Spirits?
I knew I wanted to dive deeper into the whiskey world, and I had a creative pull towards blending. But there weren't a ton of brands that were really blending at the time. Barrell Craft Spirits was the one that was on the top of my list, because Barrell was doing things differently from anyone else. I still remember the first time I tried Dovetail, it's a whiskey bourbon blend with a Dunn Vineyards Cabernet finish, a Rum finish, and a Port Wine finish. On paper it sounds very interesting, but it also sounds extremely difficult to get the balance right. And I had often been disappointed by things that sounded interesting, but failed to bring all of the elements together. But when I tried my first sip of Dovetail I was blown away by the flavor, mouthfeel and the ability to taste all elements of the finishing casks. I was wowed and that led me to dig into more of what Barrell was doing, and it made me want to work for them.
How did that Lead to Actually Working for Barrell Craft Spirits?
The bourbon world in Kentucky – it can be a small, small world. Tripp Stimson (BCS Chief Whiskey Scientist), worked with my wife for a little bit when he was at Kentucky Artisan Distillery. Because of this, I “knew” Tripp, even though I didn't know him very well. He and Joe Beatrice, the Founder of Barrell Craft Spirits, would come into Buthertown Grocery, and they'd sit at the bar and and we'd chat – they'd give me stuff to taste, and I'd sometimes give them cocktails and bites. Through these interactions, I developed that personal connection with them. Eventually they wanted to grow their private barrel program, and had a position become available for Single Barrel Manager – that's how I got my foot in the door with Barrell Craft Spirits.
Where did Your Blending Journey with Barrels Start?
On my first day at Barrell, Joe and Tripp called me into a tasting room, and they put two samples in front of me, and they said, “taste these and pick one.” I had no idea what it was, so I tasted the samples and gave my objective opinion. It ended up being the Gray Label Bourbon release for that year, and the two of them were split on which direction to go. I gave my feedback, and they made those decisions. Clearly I wasn't on the blending team that day, but I was quickly pulled into tasting in the lab, working with them, and watching how they do it. That's what I wanted to do. Yes, single barrels are fun and I enjoy working with those because there's a lot of exciting things happening there. We also have private barrels where we're blending single barrels, essentially, so there's a lot of fun stuff that's happening there.
But working in the lab was what I really wanted to do, so I was very excited. And then the first blend I actually worked on was pretty early in my time with the company. It was like three months in, and Tripp was sick for about a week, and we had a deadline. So it was just me and Joe, and he's like, “Okay, can you pull these samples from the tank, bring them in here? We have to taste them.” And we did that for five days until we got to the final answer and blended it. Who knows what would have happened if Tripp was never sick that week. I was working with them on the blends for about six months or so after that – I can't really remember – then I officially became an assistant blender.
Now as a Blender, what does it Look like when You are Developing a New Flavor Profile?
Sometimes we get there different ways, but most of the time it starts out pretty similarly where you have some kind of vague idea of where you want it to go. I try to use a Zen beginner’s mind concept when I approach every blend. It’s this approach that as the beginner, all options are open, but as the expert, you're limited – you have a more narrow mindset, because you know more. So I try to approach it from the lens that I do know more, because I learn every single time I'm tasting something, and every single time that I'm blending, I'm getting those data points. I'm remembering them, and I'm taking notes on them. But I also approach it from a perspective that anything is possible, and we could go any direction, as long as we are allowing the flavor to kind of lead the way.
There might be parameters that we want to hit for a product where it has to be all bourbon, or we want it to be these ages. We're also definitely going to be using at least three different states of distillation in the blend. So those are all parameters, but within that realm, there are different mash bills; there's distillate from different distilleries and there are different ages. There are also barrels that have been kept at different rick houses around the country, so there are just so many different flavor profiles and you have to figure out how to get to your answer using all these variables. It's definitely a process, and it takes a long time. Often it'll start with what the base blend is going to be. I'll start with five, six, or maybe even 10 different ideas of what I want that base blend to be, taste through them, make changes, and then maybe do another round of those, until I get to three or four that I really enjoy as base blends. Then I'll focus on those base blends, and start adding in what the core modifiers are going to be, or the core component blends that we want to add to these.
Then we start it over again, making another set of samples – sometimes that process can happen quickly, if everything's kind of working together, and other times it takes a long time. There have been some products where you're making 100 lab samples before you're even getting to the final answer in the lab. And then once you do the second round of that, where you've added the other components, then I'll try to narrow it down to like two or three at that point that I like the most, and then do another layer of like additions to that. And we just keep going until we get there.
Once I have the lab blend, then the plan is to make that happen in the distillery by dumping the barrels, but I do that carefully. I’ll dump everything separately, pull the samples back into the lab, and each addition that I make I'm testing in the lab to make sure it still lines up with the lab blend. Sometimes you're looking for something that's going to be different. For instance, if there was no cherry note in the lab blend, but all of a sudden there's this really strong dark cherry flavor that is exciting, then I'm like, “Well, where did that come from? Maybe I need to adjust this blend, because there's something about some of the barrels that we dumped that we didn't see in the composite blend, and I might want to play with that a little bit more.” So then I'll bring it back to the lab and kind of do another round of tests, and again, try to get to the most exciting, flavorful thing we can get in the bottle for that.
Of the Blends You've Worked on, Are There Any That have Surprised You or Stood Out?
Seagrass is always one that stands out because Seagrass was the blend that we created in the wrong order, if there is an order. Joe had a name, he had a flavor profile in mind, and he knew it was going to be a rye whiskey blend with three barrel finishes. He wanted it to be like the New England coast, like with salt in the air and the wind blowing through, and be herbal and earthy, but also have these fruit notes. And so that was a weird place to start. It really forced me to take that beginner’s mind to a whole other extreme, where literally anything was on the table, as long as it’s rye whiskey and three barrel finishes.
The experimentation on that blend was all over the place, and it took a long time to get to the answer, which was a blend of Canadian and American rye and using apricot brandy barrels, rum agricole barrels and madeira barrels. That one was really cool, but it was also a blend where when we were finished, we thought it might be too weird for people – most people aren't going to know what Martinique rum, or even what Madeira is. But the flavor profile was so approachable that we quickly realized it would be a hit with a wide reach of palettes. You know, people that don't even like rye whiskey really like it. People that don't drink that much whiskey; even they like it. And people that would traditionally already gravitate to it seemed to like it as well. That was an interesting process to get to the final blend, it was something that we loved internally and then it had a wider reach than we were expecting. So, it was really exciting.
Do You have any Routines or Ways that You Approach a New Blend?
My palette is very involved in this work, so I definitely have to maintain a consistent morning routine as far as what I'm eating and drinking. Typically, if I have to taste something, I try to taste between 10 and 11am. It’s kind of a sweet spot for where I know my palate is very consistent. Because in the morning, everything that I've had to eat and drink is very consistent, giving me a standard palette. Now I'm not going to base all of my flavors on that one taste though, so I'll step away, go work on the computer or work with my team, then come back in the afternoon, after lunch to taste it again. I like to taste after lunch as well, because people aren’t always tasting whiskey with a perfect palate. People are eating and drinking throughout the day, so I want to know what the whiskey will taste like after a meal.
I also want to see what those flavor differences are, and kind of play on that too, and then also taste over multiple days. Our palates change a little bit every day as well. Tasting consistently in the morning over multiple days before making decisions. A lot of times at the end of the day – I'll try to prepare a big round of lab blends, build them, have them on the table, ready to go, and then the next day, when I come in, I know I'll come in and taste them around 10AM.
When You're not Working, How do You like to Drink Your Whiskey? What do You Drink?
It's funny, because when I was a beverage director, I was drinking a little bit of everything all the time. I was constantly tasting different wines, spirits, beer, and really everything to build a compelling bar program. But here I'm so hyper focused on whiskey, and we taste everything at cask strength. So I actually drink less whiskey outside of work now, because I'm trying to keep my palate fresh and focused on analyzing the whiskey in the lab.
When I do drink whiskey, it's almost always neat. Sometimes in the summer, I'll have it on the rocks. I also do love a good cocktail – the Boulevardier is one of my favorite whiskey cocktails. But outside of work, I'll say that I mostly drink a light clean crisp pilsner or lager, or a crisp white wine.
If Someone was New to Barrell Craft Spirits, Where Should They Get Started on Their Tasting Journey?
Sometimes it depends on the person, but I'll say one thing that we started recently is our Foundation line. It's going to be our most approachable product both in flavor and in cost. Foundation Bourbon was released two years ago now at 100-proof, which was the first time we released a product that was not cask strength. At around $55, we wanted to create something that could be an everyday bourbon, with the high quality and compelling flavors that people know Barrell Craft Spirits for. While it's a five year age statement, it actually has five to nine year bourbon in the blend that is composed of barrels from Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee and Maryland. So that might be a good place to start.
We're also expanding that line this year with our Double Barrel Foundation release – it’s also 100-proof, with the same states of distillation and the blend, but the liquid has spent time in a secondary barrel. It's going to be another product that's very approachable to every type of drinker. So that's one starting point, especially if you don't know Barrell Craft Spirits at all. On the other side of things, you could also go with Seagrass or Dovetail – I think both are really good starting points because they show what we do with high proof products that have multiple finishes beautifully blended together, and how even at those proofs, things can be very approachable and and have a lot of different flavor that people can enjoy when you might not expect it.
How do You Continue to Maintain that Sense of Consistency in Your Ongoing Releases?
We have high standards here. We do everything by taste, so we're not relying on any equipment to do the analyzing for us. It’s all about flavor. And then as far as getting to that final answer – that final blend – the amount of time that we take to get there is spent to make sure that there's a really interesting aroma, and that the palette starts one way, changes in the middle and has a really good finish.
We also like a fat, viscous palette, because when you are doing cask strength products, if you have that mouth feel it really can help tame down the alcohol. This way, you're not getting that alcohol burn, you're getting flavor. Joe, Tripp and I are all very sensitive to that – if it's not in the blend, we're not happy. We keep looking and we keep tweaking, making it better.
What are You Excited About for the Remainder of the Year?
In 2025, there will be a number of smaller releases that we will be doing that have been small projects. Some of them are finishing casks that I've been working on for years, but we have never had the right product for them to come out in or the right size. So, I am really excited to get some of these smaller but very exciting products out. One of them will be a toasted Vantage.
And, you know, Vantage already has toasted barrel finish in it, plus a Mizunara finish and a French oak finish, but we took that full blend and then put it into an American Grand Cru toasted barrel – and the flavors that we're getting on these barrels are just incredible. What some might find surprising is that there’s almost no aggressive tannin for having so many different types of new oak finishes. I'm really excited to get that one out there, among some others that are different casks, but on a small scale. We are really excited!
In Closing
With an astounding range of flavors developed in releases like Seagrass and Dovetail matched with new core Foundation releases and a single barrel program that continues to delight whiskey collectors, there is no doubt a long road ahead for the team at Barrell Craft Spirits. Nic continues to make waves by using her amped up senses, a truly attuned nose and palate, to constantly surprise fans of the brand, supporting a groundbreaking team and founded in processes that focus on quality. The question really should be, what will they release next? And how can I be first in line to get it?
