Tasting notes

nose

vanilla sauce over bread pudding, with caramel, baked apple, cinnamon and nutmeg, and roasted peanut and toasted corn beneath

palate

chewy, with a burst of cinnamon heat, then molasses, dark cherry, stone fruit and orange peel, settling into caramel with a touch of mint

finish

medium in length; cinnamon, anise, nutmeg and clove hold on with caramel and a hint of nut butter, while the fruit drops away and oak tannin dries the close

Mash bill

73% corn, 15% rye, 12% malted barley. This is the recipe Ben Holladay developed in 1856, made today with Missouri-grown corn, which the state's bourbon law has required since 2020 for any whiskey labeled Missouri bourbon. The distillery runs two cookers so the corn can be cooked at a high temperature and the more delicate rye and barley at a lower one.

Why it's craft

This is Holladay's original bourbon: the 1856 rye recipe, bottled in bond at six years old with a chart on the label showing which rickhouse floors went into the batch. Holladay mashes, distills, ages and bottles it in Weston, at the oldest distillery west of the Mississippi still on its original site. It qualifies as Missouri bourbon under a 2019 state law, which means Missouri-grown corn and barrels made in Missouri. The rickhouses are not climate controlled, and temperatures between their top and bottom floors can differ by as much as thirty degrees.