Tasting notes

nose

toasted marshmallow, dark chocolate and vanilla custard

palate

graham cracker and marshmallow with chocolate, toasted almond and candied fruit

finish

mocha and shortbread, building to black pepper and maple

Mash bill

69% corn, 19% wheat, 12% malted barley. This is Hard Truth's BW-2 recipe, which uses wheat where the house's BW-1 bourbon uses rye and carries more malted barley. It is a sweet mash of Indiana grain, started from fresh ingredients every batch rather than with spent mash from the last.

Why it's craft

This wheated bourbon, first released in 2024, comes from the distillery Hard Truth opened in Brown County in 2018. As a bottled-in-bond whiskey it was made in a single distilling season at a single distillery and spent at least four years in bond, all on Hard Truth's 325-acre campus, from grain mashed and distilled there. Hard Truth started in 2015 above a pizza restaurant in Nashville, Indiana, and belongs to BWQOHT, Inc., the family company behind Big Woods Restaurants and Quaff ON! Brewing.