About
Vanilla, oak, spice — rounded, easy structure. The reliable mid-tier bourbon.
Kentucky Vintage comes out of the Willett Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky. It sits in the house's small batch family with Noah's Mill and Rowan's Creek, hand bottled at 45 percent.
The recipe is a marriage of two mash bills. About 85 percent is Willett's original mix of 72 percent corn with rye and malted barley. The rest pushes corn to 79 percent. Each is sour mashed, fermented three to five days in stainless steel and distilled twice, finishing in a copper pot still modelled on Willett's original. The two whiskies age apart for four to six years in new American oak with a number 4 char, then come together. There is no age statement.
Skurnik finds candied peanut and toasted coconut on the nose, then caramel, orange peel and cherry with a peppery finish. That sweetness and spice is why it stirs down so well with sugar and bitters.
Structure
Picked on Stef's structure profile.
