Jack Daniel’s Coy Hill Barrelhouse 8 Whiskey Review

Few individual whiskey limited releases of the last few years have caused quite the level of splash that Jack Daniel’s Coy Hill did when its first two batches burst onto the scene in 2021 and 2022. Put simply, most drinkers had never seen anything like this out of Brown-Forman in the past, and certainly not with the broadly accessible Jack Daniel’s brand most famous for the 80 proof shelf staple Old No. 7. The Coy Hill High Proof releases shattered all previous associations of the limits of “cask strength” for the brand, blowing straight past “hazmat” and into uncharted territory. Most of the batches landed in the mid-to-high 140 proof range, while a couple even breezed to numbers like 153.2 and 155.1 proof! We are talking rocket fuel, here.

And oh, what a stir those bottles caused. Reviewers praised the intense, concentrated flavors. Secondary market pricing soared to absolutely absurd levels, and retailer price gouging followed. The Coy Hill High Proof releases became some of the most sought-after bottles to ever bear the Jack Daniel’s name on them, as the entire American whiskey “proof hound” community collectively lost its mind.

Now the series is back, but we must note that there have been some small changes here. The 2024 release of this whiskey is designated as Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Special Release Coy Hill Barrelhouse 8, and one will note that the words “high proof” technically do not appear. This is still a cask strength Tennessee whiskey series, and the proofs are definitely still high, but they’re no longer stratospheric or hazmat in nature. These single barrel expressions, according to the distillery, are bottled at proofs ranging from 122 to 137.5, from the traditional Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey mash bill. They were barreled on the fifth and sixth floors of the Coy Hill Barrelhouse 8 in Sept. of 2013, putting this likely age statement (they oddly do not specify) somewhere over 10 years. As in previous releases in the series, this high point in the distillery’s highest elevation rickhouse leads to more water evaporation and higher overall proofs.

But with that said … I can hear the faint whiskey geek gnashing of teeth from here. I think it’s safe to say that no matter how good this expression might be, there’s going to be a proof hound contingent that is borderline furious that Brown-Forman is putting out another Coy Hill release without proof points in the 140s and 150s. Those guys need their rocket fuel, and I can already hear their insistence that this release is just a pale imitation of the “real” Coy Hill bottles from 2021 and 2022. I can only assume that the folks at Brown-Forman are aware of this segment, and removed the “high proof” portion of this expression’s name for that reason, so as to not appear to be promising the exact same experience. Presumably, this Coy Hill is meant to offer a slightly more approachable version of that same flavor intensity. Regardless, my own sample of this whiskey weighs in at a still quite sturdy 134.7 proof, and carries a $80 MSRP that will probably be much higher than that if you encounter it in person.