Tasting notes

nose

dark toffee and maple with toasted hazelnut, nougat, dark chocolate and dusty oak

palate

rich and slightly syrupy; candied orange, cooked cherry and caramel, with cigar leaf and charred wood under the sweetness

finish

medium to long; cherry and chocolate linger with vanilla and caramel, then baked apple and allspice before seasoned oak and a wisp of campfire smoke close it out

Mash bill

Corn, rye and malted barley, in proportions Michter's does not publish. The distillery describes its bourbon recipe only as built around top-grade American corn, and says many of the barrels chosen for this release are much older than the ten years on the label.

Why it's craft

This was one of the first two whiskeys Michter's released after reviving the brand in Kentucky, and every bottle still comes from one barrel. Rather than dump barrels at ten years, the distillery lets them go longer and picks only the ones it judges fully matured, so many are well past the age on the label. A private-selection barrel of this bourbon sold at a London auction in 2020 for £166,000, at the time a record for a barrel of bourbon. Michter's does not say where this release was distilled: its Shively stills filled their first barrel in August 2015, and earlier stock was distilled under contract to its recipes.