Review: Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Sweet Oak Bourbon

The 21st installment of Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection has arrived, this one fairly tame on paper next to last year’s Madeira Cask Finish expression. The conceit: The 2025 Master’s Collection release — Sweet Oak Bourbon — is aged in Chinkapin oak barrels. It’s a species of oak more common on the east coast and less commonly used for barrel building — though we’ve seen plenty of them in recent years as experimental releases.

Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection Sweet Oak Bourbon Review

Immediately unusual, the name of the whiskey immediately strikes the drinker as a misnomer: It doesn’t smell sweet but rather fairly musky and mushroomy, at least at first blush. Time in glass helps the eventual, primary aromatic note to develop: black tea, sweetened, and layered with baking spice. Finally the concept of “sweet oak” makes some sense.

The palate is quite a ride, kicking off with very strong black tea flavors, sweetened with honey followed eventually by nutty almond and walnut elements. These add sweetness but also some tannic overtones, which are compounded by notes of tobacco and a significant fresh thyme character. Green herbs are not usually what I’m looking for in bourbon, and here they give the whiskey a considerable sharpness, lightly charry and punctuated by graphite — and no small amount of racy heat.

The finish maintains a sharpness that gives the bourbon a hard edge, continuing to lean into peppery herbal notes. A touch of dark chocolate-dipped fruit offer a late game respite, but the pungency persists. The oak has clearly had its way with this whiskey, and while Woodford doesn’t offer an age statement on this whiskey (as is the norm), it sure feels like it’s been mellowing in those power barrels for too long. Perhaps a finishing run in Chinkapin instead of full maturity would have been the better path forward?

110.4 proof.

B+ / $180 (700ml)

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