Barrel Proof - A Bar Review
The name of this bar predisposes me to liking it. Like my previous bar review subject, The Rusty Nail, Barrel Proof is a Lower Garden District bar specializing in what my wife and I affectionately term "brown liquids." It also happens to be one of the stops during a recent bachelor party weekend in New Orleans for one of my best friends, so I was happy to see that the bar's still doing well and doing us whiskey lovers proud. To conduct a top-shelf whiskey bar crawl in New Orleans, the Garden District is the place to be, as it features these two bars and my favorite and final review subject (check in tomorrow).
Atmosphere and Service: I loved New Orleans's bar scene because of the diversity of experiences that are available. In one famous bar, Old Absinthe House, we had an elegant absinthe louche (complete with flaming sugar cube) underneath hanging antique NFL helmets. In Bourbon House, we felt like we were enjoying a taste of New Orleans high society mingled with the drunken revelries of the French Quarter. And at The Rusty Nail, I got a taste for New Orleans's local watering hole, filled with Saints fans kicking back and watching the big game in a well-stocked, friendly dive bar.
Compared to those establishments, Barrel Proof strikes me as the best place for a date. It's a bit out of the way and in an up-and-coming neighborhood, so it retains that element of excitement and sense of discovering something unknown. The interior is an ideal place to bring a date as well: dark, candle or lantern-lit, and filled with small tables or couches for intimate conversations. It's a much more seductive location than, say, a bunch of guys in Saints jerseys working their way through a six-pack's worth of beer from the tap.
Selection: This bar has a similar depth and variety to its selection as Bourbon House, and more bottles than The Rusty Nail. Like The Nail, however, Barrel Proof isn't solely focused on bourbon and rye -- it also has a deep and respectable scotch collection with some unusual picks, including one that I tried and will be reviewing in the next article. The menu is online and claims 288 whiskies -- and I believe that number, having seen their incredible wall-to-wall bar from myself.
The bar divvies up its bourbon and rye selection by distillery and transparently includes all non-distilling producers (i.e., brands that buy bourbon from a big distributor and repackage it) in a separate category. I appreciated this organization because, for a person who knows that they like one particular bourbon, this menu allows him or her to explore its cousins from the same distillery. Alternatively, for a person feeling adventurous, this provides a clearer picture as to which distilleries he or she hasn't tried. This menu facilitates a better understanding of the core characteristics that differ between distilleries, like the signature sweetness of Buffalo Trace products or the nuttiness of Jim Beam.
As I noted yesterday in my review of The Rusty Nail, the bar even separates its scotches out by region -- a surefire sign that we're dealing with a real whiskey bar.
Rare Bottles: There are some unusual bottles here, including a few independent bottlings of scotch, which the vast majority of bars -- even bars that call themselves whiskey bars -- do not have. Like The Rusty Nail, the rarest or hardest-to-find bottles in their collection may be their assortment of Japanese whiskies. Among their bourbon selection, I didn't see anything that blew me away with its rarity, and when I asked for one of the ones that is hard to find (E.H. Taylor Barrel Proof), they told me it was out of stock that day. Their in-person menu does have a small selection of interesting store picks that don't show up online, including Four Roses Private Selections and the like, so there are some bottles here that aren't going to be commercially available or that may be exclusive to this bar and a few stores in New Orleans. I'd recommend trying at least one of those.
Yes, that is a stuffed bobcat in the corner of the bar
Value: The prices here aren't crazy, and Barrel Proof sells most drinks as either 1 or 2 oz pours, which gives you the option of trying a wider range of whiskies without having to buy heavy pours of each. Again, New Orleans is just a good city for whiskey drinking. That was consistent across the board. I don't think Barrel Proof's price stood out to me compared to Bourbon House or The Rusty Nail, but perhaps that in and of itself implies good value given its atmosphere. They also offer flights that cost around $20-25 and include a pretty interesting assortment of three 1 oz pours.
***
These three bars are a perfect introduction to the New Orleans whiskey scene. These are national-quality bars that would stack up to anywhere I've been in Miami or New York, with deep selections and much better prices than I've seen in other major cities. It's not just Bourbon Street -- this place is a Bourbon Town.