Tasting notes

nose

Cereal grain up front, then grapefruit, creamy wheat, green mango and underripe banana

palate

Full and creamy; minty caramel, white bread and apple, with the rye kept in the background

finish

Soft and slow to fade, turning resinous and piney as the grain falls away

Mash bill

60% organic rye, 40% organic wheat. This is the same recipe as Journeyman's Last Feather Rye, here bottled almost straight off the still, so the grain itself sets the flavor. The large wheat share softens the rye, which is why the spirit reads creamy and fruity rather than sharply spicy.

Why it's craft

W.R. shows what Journeyman's rye-and-wheat recipe tastes like before aging: it sees oak for less than a day, so there is no barrel to hide the organic grain or the distilling. Journeyman mashes, ferments and distills everything itself in a restored factory in Three Oaks, and puts the whole mash, grain and all, into the still. The name honors founder Bill Welter's grandfather William and father Chuck, and the whiskey was first made for the tasting room's cocktails.