Heavy grain | Fresh oak | Prune | White peppercorn | Faint raisin | Touch of baking spices

Raisin | Tannic oak | Leather | Faint rubber | Rye spice

Leather | Black peppercorn | Rye spice | Muddled raisin | Dry oak | Long

Round Barn Distillery is located in Baroda, Michigan, and houses a distillery, winery, and brewery all onsite. As their name suggests, one of their buildings is a round barn, which was popular between the 1850s and 1930s. Round Barn Winery and Brewery opened in 1992, but the Round Barn Distillery had its official grand opening on February 15, 2025. Notably, the company had been distilling for several years before its opening.

Port finished bourbons can take on a number of flavors depending on the time spent finishing in the port barrel and the source of it. While one would assume the company would use their own port barrels, Round Barn Distillery’s latest release doesn’t disclose either piece of information. However, the company does state that the barrels used were freshly dumped port barrels. The result is a sip that is clearly influenced by both the bourbon's young age and the finishing barrel.

It starts with a grain-forward aroma that pulls in fresh oak, prune, and fainter scents of raisin and baking spices. While the nose is the high point of the sip, the bourbon goes downhill from there. The midpoint highlights raisin, rye spice, drier notes of tannic oak and leather, along with an off-putting faint rubber note. The sip ends on leather, black peppercorn, and muddled raisin, and lingers for an incredibly long time. In a sea of wine-finished whiskeys, Round Barn Distillery Baroda Straight Port Finished Bourbon delivers a youthful sip that’s off-balance, at an asking price that doesn’t align with what it delivers.