The Proofing Room

This week's Breaking Bourbon Whiskey Wednesday newsletter called Old Overholt Cask Strength Rye "a rock of a rye" for Jim Beam, and pointed out something worth knowing: it often sits on shelves for months while people chase harder-to-find bottles. We haven't tasted this year's release ourselves, so we'll leave the tasting notes to them. What caught our attention is two words on the label: cask strength . Because a cask-strength bottle hands you a job most whiskey does for you before it ever leaves the distillery. What "cask strength" means Most whiskey is proofed down before bottling: water goes in until the spirit hits its target strength, often 40% to 50% ABV (80 to 100 proof). Cask strength skips that step. The whiskey goes into the bottle at or near the strength it came out of the barrel, which frequently lands somewhere around 55% to 65% ABV. That's why cask-strength releases carry a different proof every year. The strength...