Tasting notes

nose

Apricot and nectarine lead, with orange and lemon peel, vanilla, a wisp of anise and a little tobacco over mellow oak

palate

Cantaloupe and green grape sit on caramel and burnt-sugar custard, with vanilla rounding the fruit and rye spice running underneath

finish

Medium; walnut, toasted oats and oak hold as the sweetness fades, drying gently and ending on a faint touch of smoke

Mash bill

75% corn, 13% rye, 12% malted barley. Old Dominick calls this its signature Tennessee whiskey recipe and prints it on the front label. The distillery built it to bring the rye spice of Kentucky bourbon into a Tennessee whiskey, so a seam of rye spice runs under the vanilla and caramel. The grain varieties and where they are grown are not published.

Why it's craft

Old Dominick is a family-owned distillery in downtown Memphis, run by Chris and Alex Canale, great-great-grandsons of Domenico Canale, whose D. Canale & Co. sold Old Dominick whiskey from 1866. Its label says this whiskey was distilled, aged and bottled by Old Dominick in Memphis, and the distillery mills its own grain on site. The spirit is charcoal mellowed before going into heavy-char barrels of West Tennessee white oak, and it is bottled without chill filtration.