Tasting notes

nose

Maple syrup and molasses over dried figs, spiced nuts and fresh rye grain, with cinnamon, brown sugar and freshly sanded oak

palate

Dense and sweet; maple, toffee and wine-soaked cherries meet macerated figs, rye spice, cinnamon stick and charred oak

finish

Long; spiced maple syrup lingers with rye spice and cracked pepper, then leather and tobacco leaf as it turns dry and tannic

Mash bill

61% malted rye, 39% corn. M begins as 291's barrel-proof Colorado Whiskey, made from the house rye-malt recipe with grain from the Colorado plains, so malted-rye spice is the base the maple builds on. The mash is soured in open-air fermenters before it is distilled.

Why it's craft

M takes 291's own barrel-proof rye and finishes it in 291 barrels that went on to age Wisconsin maple syrup for Lincoln County Reserve, so the wood returns both the distillery's rye and the syrup to the whiskey. Distillery 291 makes everything it bottles in Colorado Springs, milling, souring and triple pot-distilling its own grain since Michael Myers ran his first batch in 2011.