Wilderness Trail (Yellow Label) Bottled In Bond Sweet Mash Wheated Bourbon Whiskey (750ml) (Previously $60)

Earthy notes of dried leaves, cut grass, and dried herbs on the nose. A thick palate, with cooked berries, grape jelly, tobacco leaf, and chile pepper. This is powerful and needs water, which brings out cocoa, coffee ice cream, cinnamon bun, and bitter oak. On the finish, the oak integrates with orange candy, cherries, cinnamon, camp coffee, and chocolate. Overall very flavorful, though perhaps just a bit barrel-forward. (DF, Winter-2021)

Wilderness Trail is one of the craft distilleries in Kentucky that is pushing the envelope and yet respecting the extremely high quality standards that have set Kentucky apart since the first bourbons were distilled. Before they were distilling for themselves, they provided an enormous catalogue of yeasts for distilleries, wineries, and breweries around the world. This expertise has allowed them to utilize the sweet mash process with stellar results. According to Whiskey Advocate: "Although Louisville’s Kentucky Peerless Distillery uses sweet mash to create its rye and bourbon, Baker and Heist believe that Wilderness Trail was the first Kentucky distillery to embrace the process as the sole mashing technique. (In fact, Baker and Heist assisted Peerless in selecting their yeast strains and designing their sweet mash process.) As with clean steam, sweet mashing—rather than the practice of sour mashing, where a small amount of fermented mash is included in the following batch—is meant to produce a softer, cleaner distillate. 'Sour mashing is often used for bacterial control, but you lose the flavor consistency in the stillage,' explains Heist. 'With sweet mashing, the yeast, grains, and water are consistent from batch to batch.'"