Ben Holladay Soft Red Wheat Bottled-in-Bond Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Ben Holladay Soft Red Wheat Bottled-in-Bond Straight Bourbon Whiskey comes from Holladay Distillery in Weston, Missouri, bottled at 100 proof after 6 years. The mash is 73% corn, 15% soft red wheat, and 12% malted barley — the distillery’s bourbon recipe with wheat in the rye’s place — filled into Missouri white oak and aged in iron-clad rickhouses where it was distilled. Bottled-in-bond fixes the strength at 100 proof from a single distiller and a single season, and that wheat-and-oak combination shows up as round grain sweetness under char and spice.

The nose starts on apricot and stone fruit, then a vanilla-wafer note and charred oak. Toffee moves through a semi-creamy body. Black cherry and spice stay on a dry finish.