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A luxury American whiskey brand defined by barrel selection and blending expertise.
Founded by two London wine trade veterans — one originally from Australia and one from Northern Ireland — Partners American Whiskey was inspired by their shared love of great bourbon and rye and the processes that make it. It is built on access, patience, and individual barrel selection. Walking warehouses all across Kentucky, drilling individual barrels, tasting across rickhouse positions, and choosing the barrels that stand apart.
Most barrels we taste are good. But it is using our relationship with our partners in Kentucky — taking the time and the effort to find the truly special barrels — that makes our bottles what they are.
Our goal when you pour Partners American Whiskey is that it makes the moment feel special. It was made with partners at every step, and it is at its best when shared with yours.
Our approach
There is a difference between choosing a barrel, and being given a choice.
Many barrel selections begin with a pre-determined shortlist. A distillery or broker pulls a few barrels, the buyer tastes them, and one is chosen — maybe the best of the three or four presented. That can produce excellent whiskey, but the field has already been narrowed before the tasting begins.
For many non-distilling whiskey brands the usual route is more limited still. You buy at lot level: a batch of barrels with a given age, proof range or mash bill. You may know what you are buying, but you are not always choosing barrel by barrel.
Over two years travelling to Kentucky from the UK, we developed the relationships needed to taste more deeply. Walking warehouses, drilling individual barrels, comparing rickhouse positions, and selecting the barrels that stood apart.
We wanted to understand the barrels in context: where they had aged, how warehouse position had shaped them, how cooperage and char contributed, and whether the whiskey had the structure to become part of a small, focused blend.
So we tasted barrel by barrel. We compared whiskey from different heights, positions, warehouses, and sources. Some barrels were good. Some were excellent. We chose the ones we kept coming back to.
Where they sat
The same floor in two very different buildings.
Both barrels happened to age on the third floor, close to the window. But third floor of seven is low in a tall building, and third of four is near the top of a short one — so the same floor number meant two quite different places to spend eight years. Add slightly different mash bills, different cooperage, different char and ninety miles between them, and they came out tasting like different elements that to us would blend perfectly to create an incredible Small Batch.
Edition 1
8-Year Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Two barrels, distilled a fortnight apart in the autumn of 2017. One in Bardstown, one in Owensboro. Married at Castle & Key and bottled without chill filtration.
Why Partners
The name is about how the whiskey came to exist.
It refers to the network we tapped into to turn this daydream into a reality: the people who opened doors, the brokers who made barrel access possible, the team at Castle & Key who handled the blending, proofing and bottling, and the bars and retailers who supported a new release.
Partners is our acknowledgement of that chain.
American whiskey is often presented as the work of one founder, one warehouse, one label.
In reality, great bottles depend on a chain of people doing their part well.