Triple Oak is Four Gate Whiskey Company’s first foray into Kentucky Straight Whiskey. Since this was initially aged in used cooperage, it does not qualify as a bourbon. The underlying seven-year-old Kentucky Straight Whiskey was distilled with a mash bill of 80% corn, 11% rye, and 9% malted barley. It was initially aged 7 years in used barrels. Four Gate Whiskey re-barreled the whiskey into new charred barrels from Kelvin Cooperage and then again into new toasted casks, also from Kelvin, resulting in a whiskey that has been aged in three different barrels and aged a total of seven years, nine months.
The idea for a triple oaked whiskey was first proposed a several years ago by the late Kevin McLaughlin of Kelvin Cooperage. Four Gate Chief Barrel Officer, Bob D’Antoni, kept the idea in the back of his mind until the right whiskey came along to make McLaughlin’s idea reality. To honor the genesis of the Triple Oak idea, Four Gate has displayed the Kelvin Cooperage Logo on the sub label for the batch. It is the first straight whiskey Four Gate has bottled that doesn’t qualify as a bourbon or rye due to the initial again in previously used cooperage.