Tasting notes

nose

cut grass, honeydew melon and fresh pine lumber, with menthol and vanilla behind

palate

sweet corn and caramel, then cinnamon stick, candied ginger, gingerbread and a sappy resin note

finish

medium-long; the cinnamon softens into creamy butterscotch, closing on cherry and dry wood

Mash bill

72% corn, 13% rye, 15% malted barley. This is the Willett family's original bourbon recipe and the lower-rye of the distillery's two bourbon mash bills; the other carries 38% rye. Willett mashes and ferments it in Bardstown and distills it twice, through a column still and then its Vendome copper pot still.

Why it's craft

Old Bardstown was the Willett family's first bourbon, and for years the label held whiskey bought from other distilleries; the current version, introduced in 2016, is bourbon Willett distills itself. The Kulsveen family, descendants of founder Thompson Willett, restarted distilling at the 1936 distillery in 2012 after decades of bottling other producers' whiskey. At 90 proof it is the gentlest pour of the family's original recipe.