Tasting notes

nose

stewed apple and pear, warm baking spice and seasoned oak, with a lift of citrus peel

palate

plump and rich in texture; mature oak and firm, tannic rye spice carry dark cherry and honey-soaked peach

finish

long and rich; black pepper and dry wood spice hang on, settling into a lingering spicy warmth

Mash bill

65% corn, 30% rye, 5% malted barley. This is the distillery's standard high-rye bourbon recipe, the same grain bill behind its flagship bonded bourbon. The large rye share supplies the structured spice that, after a decade in oak, sits under deeper wood and fruit. The mash is fermented sour mash style in open tanks, with part of a previous batch carried into each new one.

Why it's craft

A second ten-year release from a distillery founded in 2014, blended at full barrel strength from barrels laid down in a different season than its first decade-old bottling, so it shows how the same recipe keeps changing in the warehouse. It goes into the bottle without chill filtration or dilution, keeping the oils and texture that a cut-down, filtered bottle loses. Every barrel was filled on site with spirit from open-fermented sour mash on a column still and doubler, with well water drawn from the limestone aquifer under the distillery.