Michter’s 10-12 months Bourbon Has Landed, and It’s A lot Older Than You Assume

Michter’s has been bottling its 10-year-old bourbon for a quarter-century, because the early days of its rebirth in Kentucky. (Initially based mostly in Pennsylvania, the model was defunct for a number of years within the Nineteen Nineties.) 

Nonetheless, the age assertion — referring to the age of the youngest whiskey within the mix — has at all times taken a again seat to taste. Because of this every batch they bottle may be considerably older than 10 years. “As a lot as you attempt to have the whiskey in each barrel age precisely the identical, it doesn’t in actuality,” says Michter’s president Joe Magliocco. “Our grasp distiller Dan McKee and our grasp of maturation Andrea Wilson can look ahead to a whiskey to be prepared, be it 11, 12, or 15 years previous, fairly than be underneath strain to bottle it when it’s 10 years and a day previous.” 

So, how previous is the bourbon within the newest batch of Michter’s 10-12 months Bourbon? The Michter’s workforce isn’t saying, although Andrea Wilson, who has been with the distillery since 2014, confirms that “as soon as once more, it’s overaged.” 

Whatever the precise age, the flavour profile echoes that of earlier releases. “We would like Michter’s 10 to take you on a journey,” Wilson says. “We would like there to be stunning shade and engaging aromas that draw you into your first sip, a fancy concord of flavors from fruit and spice by means of to confectionary notes, beautiful maturity with out being too oak-forward, a creamy wealthy texture, and a pleasant lengthy end to depart you with an unforgettable expertise.” 

That taste profile has been the aim ever because the late Nineteen Nineties, when Magliocco was driving round Kentucky trying to supply aged bourbon — a a lot simpler job again then, when the American whiskey trade was within the thick of a decades-long stoop. 

“In these days, there was little to no marketplace for age assertion bourbons,” the 67-year-old alum of Yale and, later, Harvard Legislation Faculty, remembers. “Kentucky was awash with extra whiskey that distilleries have been anxious to do away with. We tasted by means of fantastic whiskeys of various types and picked our absolute favourite bourbon to be the one first launched as Michter’s 10-12 months Bourbon.” 

A number of years later, with Brown-Forman alum Willie Pratt on the helm, Michter’s started distilling its personal whiskey at numerous Kentucky distilleries. “Section 2,” as Magliocco calls it. And in 2015, Section 3 culminated with the opening of Michter’s very personal distillery in Shively, Kentucky. 

All through this journey, Michter’s has sought to duplicate the flavour profile of the unique 10-12 months Bourbon. Some years have been trickier than others. Take 2022, for instance, when Magliocco had signed off on the discharge of a batch that had already been growing older for just a little greater than 13 years. Nonetheless, he remembers, “Dan McKee and Andrea Wilson determined to carry it another yr till it reached 14-and-a-half years previous to bottle it as Michter’s 10-12 months Bourbon. They felt that one additional yr would take that specific whiskey from fantastic to really memorable. 

So shoppers wound up ready till one other yr for the 10-12 months launch.

Michter’s 10-12 months Bourbon occupies a vital center floor throughout the Michter’s portfolio, in between the no-age-statement US*1 bourbon and the rarer 20- and 25-year-old expressions, which commonly promote for 4 figures n the secondary market. At $195, it suits the worth vary of a sipping bourbon, although Wilson additionally recommends it for cocktails, significantly, “in a good looking basic just like the Manhattan.”

As the primary Shively-produced bourbon reaches a decade of growing older, and thus turns into eligible for inclusion in Michter’s 10-year-old bottlings, a brand new chapter within the model’s historical past is ready to start. However Wilson would be the first to let you know that she doesn’t know exactly when that will probably be. 

“We’re not growing older to achieve a quantity,” she says, “we’re growing older to achieve an distinctive consuming expertise.”