Tasting notes

nose

caramel, toffee and vanilla bean with dried red fruit, apricot and peach over toasted oak and a light cereal note

palate

toasted oak and vanilla soften into creamed corn, melted caramel, peanut brittle and light orange, with nutmeg, cardamom and pepper

finish

medium-long; rye spice and black pepper first, then orange and brown sugar fade into dry oak and baking spice

Mash bill

Corn, rye, malted barley and wheat, from two mash bills combined in a proportion that is not published. One bill is 60% corn, 20% rye and 20% malted barley; the other is 51% corn, 20% rye, 20% malted barley and 9% wheat. The Huber family grows the corn, rye and wheat on its own farm, non-GMO, and buys the malted barley locally. Both are sweet mashes, fermented for seven days in closed-top stainless steel.

Awards

• Silver — San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2025
• Gold — ASCOT Awards 2025
• Double Platinum — ASCOT Awards 2024
• Bronze — San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2022

Why it's craft

Starlight belongs to the Huber family, who have farmed at Starlight, Indiana, since Simon Huber settled there in 1843; seven generations have run it since. In 1998 the family began the push that created Indiana's farm-brandy distilling permit, opened the distillery in 2001 and had its first brandy on shelves in 2004; in 2013 it became one of the first craft distilleries in the state to make bourbon. It grows its own corn, rye and wheat, distills on pot stills and ages the barrels in rickhouses on the farm. The bottle is named for Carl T. Huber, the family's fourth-generation patriarch.