Smoke Wagon Desert Jewel Reserve 10 Years old.

Smoke Wagon Desert Jewel Reserve 10 Years old, Named after turquoise, the Nevada state semi precious stone (also called Jewel of the Desert) and like turquoise, this bourbon is rare and there is only a limited amount.

We don’t believe in rotating barrels. We feel Bourbon is aged best with the barrel racked on its side, and undisturbed. Every time a barrel is rolled around, it breaks char off of the staves. If too much char is floating in the bourbon it can undue the delicate balance of flavors and become too oak heavy. Having barrels rest on their sides ensures that bourbon passes equally through the char, the toasted layer of oak and the raw wood.

Smoke Wagon Desert Jewel Reserve 10 Years old.

After 10 years on the fourth floor (the top half of the warehouse) we felt this bourbon was aged to perfection, so the 35 barrels on that floor were pulled and Desert Jewel was created.

In the hierarchy of Smoke Wagon bourbons, Desert Jewel sets above the Small Batch bottling and the Uncut and Unfiltered bottling but below the Single Barrel 10 and 12 year bottles.

Desert Jewel is made up from a large assortment of 10 year old MGP barrels that get batched together and then proofed down to 104 proof.

Initially, there was some discussion as to whether or not any of these were single barrels, but it appears that Desert Jewel comes out in batches.