Tasting notes

nose

apricot and stone fruit up front, with caramel, apple and pear, a few wild berries, nutmeg and a light peppery edge

palate

toffee and charred oak first, then raspberry and cherry with white pepper, turning toward leather, mixed nuts and fig

finish

medium-long; caramel and vanilla linger with pepper and oak, dark fruit such as black cherry, red currant and prune arrives late, and the close turns dry and lightly bitter

Mash bill

73% corn, 15% soft red winter wheat, 12% malted barley. It is Holladay's 1856 recipe with one change, wheat in place of the rye; the distillery makes the swap for a softer, sweeter bourbon, since rye usually brings spice to the palate. Soft red wheat is a class of wheat with lower protein, red bran and little gluten. The corn is Missouri-grown, as the state's bourbon law requires.

Why it's craft

Holladay Soft Red Wheat swaps wheat for rye in the distillery's 1856 recipe, and the distillery counts it among very few bottled-in-bond wheated bourbons aged six years or more. Holladay distills, ages and bottles it on its original site in Weston, Missouri, where bourbon distilling resumed after a $10 million renovation in 2015, the first in three decades. As a Missouri bourbon under the state's 2019 law, it is made with Missouri-grown corn and aged in barrels made in the state.