Tasting notes

nose

Toffee, butterscotch and honey with nutmeg and orange peel, lifted by rose petal and light apricot and apple

palate

Soft and creamy; buttery vanilla, milk chocolate and burnt sugar, then campfire toast, cherry and dried apricot with a floral hibiscus edge

finish

Short to medium; rye spice and cinnamon come forward with a faint mint, and a light leather note and smoky vanilla stay as it fades

Mash bill

Michter's has not published the grains or their proportions for its US★1 Sour Mash, the whiskey inside this bottle. The distillery says only that its grain selection keeps it from qualifying as either a bourbon or a rye, and describes it as starting like a bourbon and finishing like a rye. Sour mash means some previously fermented mash is used to start each new fermentation, the way a sourdough starter is carried from loaf to loaf.

Why it's craft

This bottle starts with Michter's US★1 Sour Mash, a whiskey whose grain recipe fits neither the bourbon nor the rye rules, and gives it a second aging in a custom barrel of air-dried wood that is toasted but never charred. Master Distiller Dan McKee and Master of Maturation Andrea Wilson tried several levels of toast before settling on the one used. The base whiskey was named Whisky of the Year for 2019 by The Whisky Exchange, the first whiskey made in the United States to win it. The toasted version has appeared only three times, in 2019, 2022 and 2025; Michter's does not say where the whiskey in it was distilled.