Tasting notes

nose

Praline, browned butter, salted caramel and orange peel, with nutmeg, vanilla, brown sugar and light char

palate

Buttercream and orange marmalade with soft oak and black tea, cinnamon stick, rye spice, faint dark berry and vanilla taffy

finish

Warm; cinnamon syrup, vanilla, baking spice and chewy oak, with mellow rye spice and lingering honey

Mash bill

78% corn, 12% rye, 10% malted barley. The bourbon comes from a Kentucky distillery that Pursuit does not name, and the recipe is a low-rye one, so corn sweetness leads and the rye stays at the edge.

Why it's craft

Mellwood Distillery Co. was founded in Louisville in 1865 by George W. Swearingen, and the street it stood on was renamed Mellwood Avenue for it. It ran until Prohibition began, and General Distillers used the plant after repeal. Pursuit, whose production site is on that avenue, revived the name for a bonded bourbon from a Kentucky distillery it does not identify, so the whiskey is sourced. It is bottled in bond, which means one distillery and one season's distillation, and sold in 375 ml flasks.