A little background

O.K.I. is back! The name has been bought from New Riff and resurrected in all of its former MGP glory. The owners of the Remus brand fell in love with the history of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana and wanted to highlight it by restarting the brand that pays homage to all three. Fun fact, one of the O.K.I. owners has a unique legacy to MGP… His ancestors built it! Just like their later Remus releases, OKI will be using exclusively the 36% rye bourbon mashbill from MGP, bottling everything at barrel proof, and only using “sock” filtration (just to get out the charcoal chunks). There are currently 10 barrels being released with more to come. If you are lucky enough to get one of these bottles, it’ll cost you $69 MSRP. The sample used for this review was from barrel number 4.

(Tasted neat from a Halo Glass)

Color

Yellow Gold

Nose

The nose has a nice caramel note to it right upfront. It also has a surprisingly creamy aspect to it, something that I did not get off of the other barrel I sampled. Cherries, black pepper, oak spice, and a touch of blackberry all come in both on a normal and heavy nosing. Very nice!

Palate

The palate is medium-bodied and bursting with flavor. I immediately get notes of blackberries, wet tobacco, dates, and cigar box. The complexity on this barrel is fantastic! Oak spice, black pepper, and a touch of dried corn stalk all hit the mid-palate, while the front only gets touched by blackberry and cream and the back is cascaded with dates and caramel.

Finish

The finish is medium and carries over the notes of dates and brown sugar on the back palate, a touch of black pepper and oak spice on the mid-palate, and cream on the front palate.

In closing

Wow, what a fantastic barrel! I got some notes off of this that I have rarely got off of any MGP products. This just reaffirms why the 36% rye bourbon mashbill is the crown jewel of MGP. O.K.I. did a great job of selecting this barrel and dumping it at the correct time. In my opinion, you’d be lucky to grab a bottle of O.K.I. 5-Year Single Barrel Bourbon!