Tasting notes

nose

Buttered cornbread and vanilla bean lead, with clove, cherry cobbler, honey, baked apple and a little charred oak and leather

palate

Toffee and caramel over roasted corn, then red cherry, roasted peanut, dried orange and a flick of cinnamon candy

finish

Cinnamon and clove hang on and slowly fade over a soft sweet base, drying toward wood spice, nutmeg and rye bread at medium length

Mash bill

72% corn, 23% rye, 5% malted barley. The corn and rye come from a single Illinois farm near Byron, bought in rather than grown by the distillery. At 23% the rye share makes this a high-rye bourbon recipe, which comes through as cinnamon and clove over the corn's sweetness.

Why it's craft

This is the distillery's flagship and its own distillate from grain to bottle, mashed from one Illinois farm's corn and rye and bottled at 100 proof by the people who distilled it. Brothers Mike and Matt Blaum opened the Galena distillery in 2013, sold vodka and gin while this whiskey aged, and still co-own the business.