Four Roses Single Barrel is a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey from the Four Roses Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. It is bottled from one barrel of the distillery’s OBSV recipe, a high-rye mash bill fermented with Four Roses’ V yeast strain. It is aged for around seven to nine years and bottled at 50% ABV (100 proof).

Every bottle comes from a single barrel, chosen by the master distiller, so each one varies slightly from the next. The label records the barrel and warehouse it came from.

What OBSV Means

Four Roses identifies each of its ten bourbon recipes with a four-letter code. In OBSV:

• O stands for the Four Roses Distillery.
• B is the high-rye mash bill: 60% corn, 35% rye and 5% malted barley.
• S stands for straight whiskey.
• V is the yeast strain, known for delicate fruit, vanilla and a creamy texture.

The V yeast and the high rye content make OBSV the most balanced of the ten recipes. It has rye spice, ripe fruit and softness in roughly equal measure, which is why Four Roses chose it for its flagship single barrel.

Four Roses Single Barrel Tasting Notes

• Nose: Dried spice, ripe pear and cocoa, with vanilla and maple syrup.
• Palate: Ripe plum and cherry, with cinnamon and oak. Full and creamy at 100 proof.
• Finish: Long and smooth, fading on spice.

Single Barrel and the Four Roses Range

Most Four Roses bottlings marry several of the ten recipes. Four Roses Bourbon blends all ten, and Small Batch blends a selection. Single Barrel does the opposite: one recipe, one barrel, no blending. It is the clearest way to taste what a single Four Roses recipe does on its own.

Who It Suits

Single Barrel suits bourbon drinkers ready to move beyond 40% bottlings, and anyone curious about how one Four Roses recipe tastes undiluted by others. At 100 proof it stands up to ice and makes a strong Old Fashioned, but it is at its best neat.