Tasting notes

nose

stewed fruit and black tea, with toffee, nuts and golden raisin and a darker, charred cereal note

palate

dry, with spiced apple butter, raisin and toasted wood; cinnamon, black pepper, walnut and banana flicker past before cola, brewed tea and leather settle in

finish

a bay-leaf herbal note first, then dark and dried fruit rolling back with plenty of spice

Mash bill

60% corn, 20% heirloom wheat, 10% heirloom rye, 10% heirloom malted barley. This is Laws' Four Grain bourbon recipe, with the wheat, rye and barley grown as heirloom varieties by two Colorado family farms. The mash is cooked grain by grain and fermented as an open-air sour mash before distillation in Denver.

Why it's craft

The foeder is run as a solera: each year Laws draws off part of it and tops it up with younger Cognac-finished bourbon, so every release carries some of the whiskey that came before. Underneath is the Denver distillery's own four-grain bourbon, distilled on site from grain grown by two Colorado family farms. Al Laws founded the distillery in 2011 and waited three years before selling a bottle.