Bedtime Bourbon
Photos via Louisville Bourbon Transit Co.
As I’ve always maintained when writing whiskey reviews, there’s nothing wrong at all with sourcing your product. Most young distilleries of the modern microdistillery generation have done exactly that, buying juice from the likes of MGP or others while they wait for their stocks to mature. Others, like the fancifully named Louisville Bourbon Transit Co., don’t have a distillery at all—they’re what is referred to in the industry as a non-distiller producer, or NDP. But they’re quite forthcoming in the fact that they’re selling a sourced bourbon from Tennessee, and we always appreciate when these things are transparent. In fact, they only sell one product, and it’s called Bedtime Bourbon, currently in its third batch.
Bedtime Bourbon is sourced from Tennessee, from an unnamed distillery, although the smart money would suggest this could be Dickel stock. We can also probably assume that this is charcoal filtered, as with most Tennessee whiskey. They seem to be aiming at the top end of the middle shelf, with a well-aged (8 years) bourbon that is cut to 90 proof with Kentucky limestone-filtered water and sold at an MSRP of $59. Seems fairly reasonable to us, especially given the very small batch sizes. The first three batches of Bedtime Bourbon, in fact, have been a mere 12 barrels in all, totaling 2,418 hand-numbered bottles. The most recent, batch 3, was 5 barrels (1,048 bottles) in total.
According to the company, “Bedtime Bourbon is the perfect friend to greet you after a long day of work, while relaxing on the porch and, of course, as a nightcap before laying down for the evening.” So, let’s get into it and see what we pick up.