June 7, 2026 · The Hound
The Juice Box and The Brothers Picked This One
Sunday afternoon in Ballwin. Steve was working the floor at The Brothers Beer & Bourbon House, and he had this one open. He poured it without saying anything. He does that.
Rare Character Presents — Single Barrel Series. Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey. Cask Strength. Selected by St. Louis Juice Box & The Brothers.
Barrel R95-200. 115.44 proof. 57.72 ABV. Eight years and two months old. 95/5 mash bill — ninety-five percent rye, five percent malted barley. Distilled January 15, 2018. Bottled March 2026. The pick is a joint effort between two St. Louis operators who do not waste a barrel slot on a soft pour.
Who is Rare Character
Rare Character Whiskey Co. was founded by Pablo Moix — a bartender turned barrel hunter with two decades of buying single barrels for his own bars and restaurants before he ever put his name on a bottle. The Lexington, Kentucky outfit does not distill. They source. They taste warehouses for a living. The Single Barrel Series is the line where Moix and his crew hand-pick barrels that, in their own words on the back label, “have never been released before, and will never be released again.”
That is a single-barrel pick promise — and unlike a lot of single-barrel marketing copy, the label includes the distill date, the bottle date, and the mash bill in plain print. The Hound respects a back label that tells the truth without footnotes.
The St. Louis side of the pick
This is the part that matters locally. The barrel was selected by St. Louis Juice Box and The Brothers — together. Juice Box is a serious bottle shop with a barrel-pick program that has been getting sharper for years. The Brothers is Steve’s bar, and Steve is the one who put it in the Glencairn. When two operators with different formats — retail and pour-by-the-glass — agree on a single barrel, the read is usually that the barrel pulled harder than the rest of the lineup at the warehouse tasting. Otherwise they would have split.
The pour
The Hound did not need water. At 115.44 proof it carries more than it punishes. The nose opens with toasted rye bread and a thin line of black pepper — not the dry sneeze-pepper of a younger rye, but the rounded, baked kind you get from eight years in oak. The palate brings stone fruit pit, a small bloom of mint at the back, and a finish that goes long without going hot.
This is not a rye that needs to prove anything. It does not lean on barrel char to do the work. It does not punch above its proof and then collapse. It sits.
What it is worth
The Rare Character Single Barrel Series typically runs $130 to $160 at retail when you can find one — and most of them are gone the day a pick lands at the shop that picked it. The Hound balked at the price the first time the number landed. The number sits in the upper range for a single barrel rye from a non-distiller producer, and the reflex is to flinch. The Hound flinched.
The Hound was wrong to flinch. This bottle is worth every dollar. Eight years and two months in oak, 115.44 proof carried clean, a 95/5 mashbill that did not get smoothed into a beginner pour, and a joint pick from two St. Louis operators who do not waste a barrel slot. The price is the price. The juice is the juice. Pay it.
Juice Box’s own announcement of the pick is on their Facebook — the St. Louis Juice Box post on this barrel.
If Juice Box still has bottles on the shelf when you read this, the chase is short — drive there. If they do not, Steve had the bottle open on Sunday and was pouring it in the Glencairn. The bar pour is the easier path and the more sociable one.
Why this entry exists
The Hound writes about bottles the Hound has poured. This was one. Steve poured it. The label says The Brothers helped pick it. The tasting note is the Hound’s own, no secondhand sourcing, no reviewer aggregation. That is the rule.
If you want to find this bottle: ask at Juice Box first, then call The Brothers and ask if Steve still has it open. Tip well either way.
— The Hound
Disclosure: Tasted at the bar. The Hound paid for the pour. No promotional consideration from Rare Character, Juice Box, or The Brothers.
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