The Cut Weekend: On Deck — June 14, 2026 — SE02E49 — Four Roses LESB 2026 Blind Commitment at 108.2 Proof

This is The Cut Weekend. I’m Franklin. Sunday’s the day we look down the road and figure out where the week ahead is worth your time. Pour something easy and let’s walk through what’s coming.

There’s one date with a clock on it this week, and it’s tomorrow. Wild Turkey Master’s Keep Triumph 2026 — seventeen years, 116.4 proof, eleven thousand four hundred bottles for the whole country — closes its allocation window on Monday, June 15. The bottle’s $199.99 if your retailer holds an account. Pre-sale on the secondary side has been quoting $280 to $320 with no bottles even shipped yet. If you’ve been thinking about it, the work is one phone call to a specialty account today or first thing tomorrow morning. After Monday, the same bottle exists, but the entry point doesn’t.

After that, the calendar opens up a little. The BTAC 2026 lotteries are still live — Virginia ABC closes June 27, Ohio OHLQ closes June 25, both free to enter for state residents. Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Michigan are expected to open their portals in the next ten to fourteen business days based on how Sazerac usually staggers these. Five minutes per entry, no purchase, no obligation. You don’t need a relationship; you just need to live in the right state and remember to log on.

E.H. Taylor Jr. Old Warehouse “C” Bottled-in-Bond is sitting in pre-allocation right now at $54.99, and the press release hasn’t landed. That window stays narrow through about June 20 with shipments expected June 23 to 28. If your retailer carries Taylor, this is a quick ask. Maker’s Mark Wood Finishing Series FAE-01 — the first French-geometry stave in that program — is two to three weeks out from shelves at 108 proof. And Knob Creek 18-Year Single Barrel cleared the TTB this past week; pre-registration is open at allocated accounts ahead of a Q3 release.

For the feature this week, I want to point at something that’s coming together quietly: the Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch 2026. The pre-allocation is open right now. The TTB confirmed it at 108.2 proof — that’s the highest the series has run since 2019. The pre-allocation window closes June 30. And here’s the wrinkle that makes this one a story instead of a spec sheet: Brent Elliott isn’t revealing the recipe until July 8. So buyers are deciding whether to commit on proof data alone, eight days before they find out what’s actually in the blend. Four Roses runs ten distinct recipes across two mash bills and five yeast strains — the LESB pulls a handful of those and blends them, and which ones Brent picked is the whole personality of the bottle. If you’ve ever wondered what trust in a master distiller looks like in dollar terms, this is it. MSRP’s somewhere around $130 to $135, and the 2025 cohort is sitting at $215 on the secondary right now. It’s the kind of decision that rewards listening to the distiller and watching the proof, not chasing the hype.

So set your week like this. If the Triumph matters to you, call tomorrow. If you live in a BTAC state, get your entries in this week and don’t wait. And keep an eye on the LESB window — June 30 closes the pre-allocation, July 8 reveals the recipe.

Every one of those dates lives in the allocation calendar inside The Perfect Pour. Let the app hold them for you and nudge you before a window closes — that’s what it’s for, so you’re not scrolling back through a podcast trying to remember which Tuesday mattered. We’re three weeks out. It launches July 4th — theperfectpourapp.com.

That’s what’s on deck. If The Cut Weekend earned a few minutes of your Sunday, do me one favor — follow the show wherever you’re listening, so Saturday’s edition finds you on its own. The written brief’s always free at chasingtheunicornpodcast.com, and the full American Whiskey Industry Brief is on our Patreon. I’m Franklin. Pour something you like, share it with somebody worth sharing it with — and remember, your unicorn is out there.