Tasting notes

nose

Vanilla bean and grated nutmeg over a heavy layer of oak, with hints of caramel and almond

palate

Honey and ripe stone fruit with cherry and more oak, while a faint smokiness and white pepper build through the middle toward cigar box

finish

Long and lingering, as fleshy stone fruit gives way to cinnamon and toffee and the warmth fades slowly

Mash bill

Blue corn; the full grain split is not published. It draws on the heirloom blue corn Wood Hat grows and breeds on its own acreage, the same corn behind its other blue corn whiskeys. Hinegardner describes blue corn as rich and complex, and selects varieties by baking cornbread from them before they are planted again.

Why it's craft

Ol' Blue is Wood Hat's blue corn whiskey bottled one barrel at a time without dilution, so strength and character shift from barrel to barrel. It comes from a founder-owned distillery, opened in 2014, that grows and breeds its own corn and cooks, ferments, distills, ages and bottles everything on site.