Tasting notes

nose

vanilla and ripe apricot over cinnamon, baking spice and oak, with a faint thread of mint and dark berry that gives it a brandy-like fruitiness

palate

vanilla and stone fruit, apricot and plum, with blackberry jam, cinnamon and nutmeg settling onto oak and a touch of mint jelly

finish

long; oak and cinnamon hold on while apricot sweetness lingers, then a cool mint-chocolate note rises as it dries down to woody spice

Mash bill

75% white corn, 10% rye, 15% malted barley. The grain is grown in Wisconsin; for the first release, all of the corn and rye came from a single farmer about a mile from the distillery. The distillery had its neighbors at Indian Valley Farms grow several kinds of corn and settled on white corn as the most balanced. The white corn and the high share of malt echo how bourbon was made on the property before Prohibition, and it is a sweet mash.

Awards

• Silver — Tastings.com 2021
• Bronze — American Craft Spirits Competition 2021

Why it's craft

Each batch comes from a single distilling season, so the bourbon works like a wine vintage and shifts with each year's crop. Wollersheim is a family winery on a hillside where brandy was made in the 1800s; it built its own stillhouse in 2015 and mills, mashes, ferments and distills Wisconsin grain there. The barrels are coopered from Wisconsin oak that seasons in the distillery yard before it is toasted and charred.