Tasting notes

nose

caramel, vanilla bean and honey with orange zest and dried stone fruit, then toasted oak, floral notes and rye spice

palate

grain-forward and spicy at first, thickening to an oily texture; caramel, butterscotch, roasted pecan and dark cherry give way to cinnamon, clove, mint and black pepper

finish

long; toasted oak, leather and cocoa with vanilla, and herbal rye spice lingering after the sweetness fades

Mash bill

65% corn, 20% floor-malted barley, 15% rye. A fifth of the mash in malted barley gives this bourbon the grain-forward, spicy opening the distillery describes before the oak and the rye-barrel finish take over. It is the same recipe as the Leopold Bros eight-year bourbon, here given two more years in wood.

Why it's craft

This is the first Leopold Bros bourbon to reach ten years, and the distillery releases it barrel by barrel, so each bottling is a single cask at its own strength. After a decade in new oak the bourbon goes into barrels just emptied of Leopold Bros Three Chamber Rye, made on a type of still that had vanished from American distilling until the distillery built one in 2015, and the rye left in the wood adds oil and sweetness. Every step, from mashing to the dunnage warehouse, happens at the family distillery in Denver.