Tasting notes

nose

orange crème brûlée, dried cranberry and a strong run of baking spice

palate

light caramel and vanilla with cinnamon, a grassy lemongrass note and sweet oak underneath

finish

long and buttery, with ginger and cinnamon carrying through to the end

Mash bill

75% Bloody Butcher corn, 20% malted rye, 5% malted barley. Bloody Butcher is an open-pollinated red heirloom dent corn that the Nethery family grows on its home farms in Shelbyville, and the distillery says it gives an earthier, sweeter and nuttier spirit. The rye is malted rather than raw: in 2014 Joyce Nethery's test batches arrived with every small grain malted after a delivery mix-up, and the family liked the result enough to make malted grains the house style.

Why it's craft

Bottled-in-bond rules mean this bourbon comes from one distilling season at one distillery, aged at least four years under bond and bottled at exactly 100 proof, so nothing in it was bought in. The Nethery family grows the corn on its own land, and the distillery that Joyce and Autumn Nethery opened in 2016 ferments, distills and bottles on the same Shelbyville site. It was Jeptha Creed's first bottled-in-bond release, made for the distillery's fifth anniversary.