Tasting notes

nose

caramel and pecan with clove, ripe fruit and oak

palate

toffee and caramel with cherry and sweet cream

finish

lingering; coffee and vanilla settle into oak

Mash bill

73% corn, 19% rye, 8% malted barley. This is Hard Truth's BW-1 recipe, made from Indiana grain, and it was the first whiskey the distillery barreled after building its still in 2018. Every batch is a sweet mash: it starts from entirely fresh ingredients instead of reusing part of the previous batch, as sour mash does, which the distillery says keeps more of the grain's flavor.

Why it's craft

Hard Truth began distilling in 2015 in the upstairs rooms of Big Woods Pizza in Nashville, Indiana, and in 2018 moved to a new sweet mash distillery on a 325-acre wooded property a mile away. This bourbon was the first whiskey barreled there, and it is made grain to glass: Indiana grain mashed, fermented, distilled on a Vendome column still and aged on site. Where sour mash reuses part of each previous batch, Hard Truth starts every batch fresh. The distillery is part of BWQOHT, Inc., the family company that also owns Big Woods Restaurants and Quaff ON! Brewing.