Tasting notes

nose

toasted marshmallow, dark caramel and sharp honey, with milk chocolate, marzipan, dark fruit and sweet toasted oak

palate

full and rich; vanilla and dark caramel lead, then hazelnut, apple, dried dark fruit, a little leather and baking spice

finish

long and creamy; honeyed apple and burnt caramel hold on, then baking chocolate and tobacco give way to drying oak, leather and white pepper

Mash bill

72% corn, 18% rye, 10% malted barley. This is the Woodford Reserve bourbon recipe, and the distillery points out that 18% rye is high for a bourbon: rye costs more, and it is there for the spice. Corn gives the sweetness and malted barley a nutty note. Double Oaked changes the wood, not the grain.

Awards

• Double Gold — San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2023

Why it's craft

Double Oaked takes mature Woodford Reserve bourbon and gives it a second new oak barrel, one toasted deeply and charred only lightly so it gives up sweet, soft wood character instead of more char. The house batches whiskey from pot stills and column stills, runs one of the longest fermentations in the industry, and ages its barrels in heat-cycled warehouses. The distillery stands on a National Historic Landmark site in Versailles, Kentucky, where bourbon was first made in 1812, and Woodford Reserve is owned by Brown-Forman.