Tasting notes

nose

Graham cracker and honey over toasted grain, with pralines, dried fruit and a faint curl of fruitwood smoke

palate

Honeycomb and buttered rye biscuit up front, tart cherry in the middle, then raisin bran, leather and savory rye spice

finish

Medium-long and tingling; white pepper and honey linger with a mineral edge as the smoke fades out

Mash bill

Corn, rye and malted barley, part of the barley smoked over cherrywood; FEW does not publish the proportions of the finished whiskey. Its backbone is the distillery's straight bourbon (70% corn, 20% rye, 10% malted barley) and straight rye (70% rye, 20% corn, 10% malted barley). The third part is a malt whiskey made from cherrywood-smoked barley, which adds a thread of fruitwood smoke that neither the bourbon nor the rye carries on its own.

Awards

• Gold — Beverage Testing Institute 2026

Why it's craft

FEW has mashed, fermented and distilled its own whiskey since 2011 in a converted auto chop shop in Evanston, Illinois, the town that once housed the headquarters of the temperance movement. This bottle marries three of the distillery's own spirits, and the smoked malt in it is made in the same building as the bourbon and rye. FEW has been owned by Heaven Hill since 2022, when Heaven Hill bought its parent company, Samson & Surrey.