Tasting notes

nose

caramel custard, baked apple and burnt sugar, with sweet corn, charred oak and a soft marshmallow note at the end

palate

light-bodied and bright, with clementine and grilled pear over brown sugar, sweet oak and soft wheat grain

finish

fairly short; baked bread and cracked peppercorn turn flinty and dry with gunpowder and allspice, as oak and caramel hang on

Mash bill

79% corn, 8% wheat, 13% malted barley. The corn and wheat are grown in Arkansas and came from Stratton Seed in Stuttgart, which trucked them 500 miles to Kentucky for distilling. Wheat, not rye, is the second grain, as in Rock Town's pot-distilled Arkansas Bourbon.

Awards

• Gold — WSWA Tasting Competition 2023
• Double Gold — John Barleycorn Awards 2023

Why it's craft

Rock Town normally distills on its own copper pot still in Little Rock, but this line is column distilled at Bardstown Bourbon Company in Kentucky under that distillery's Collaborative Distilling Program. Founder and head distiller Phil Brandon started the project in March 2020 to keep up with demand, using his own bourbon recipe and Arkansas corn and wheat from Stratton Seed in Stuttgart. The barrels came back to Little Rock to age, so the whiskey is distilled in Kentucky but grown and aged in Arkansas.