What&rsquo;s happening in wine and whiskey this week:
<h3 dir="ltr">This Week&rsquo;s Unicorn Review Stories</h3>
🥃 Gina Pace picked some of the <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/unicorn-review/best-tequila-for-whiskey-fans">best aged tequilas for whiskey drinkers</a>, from single estate expressions to anejos aged in wine barrels to a reposado matured in Japanese mizunara oak.
🍷 Alissa Bica Raines took a <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/unicorn-review/new-zealand-central-otago-wine-region">deep dive into the world of New Zealand&rsquo;s Central Otago region</a>, exploring its world-renowned Pinot Noir and highlighting a range of white wines that are worth collecting.
<h3 dir="ltr">New Bottle Releases</h3>
TX Whiskey Texas Straight Rye Whiskey Full Proof ($40)
This is the 16th edition of TX Whiskey&rsquo;s Experimental Series, which highlights the Fort Worth distillery&rsquo;s use of different mashbills and maturation techniques. This rye whiskey was aged for seven years and bottled at 120 proof, an attempt to showcase how the specific climate in Texas affects a whiskey&rsquo;s flavor. Look for notes of toasted oak, cinnamon, molasses and caramel, along with a healthy dose of spice.
Jack Daniel&rsquo;s Halo MK1 Tennessee Whiskey ($600)
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=jack+daniel%27s&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_aschttps://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Jack+Daniel%E2%80%99s&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Jack Daniel&rsquo;s</a> partnered with the Formula 1 McLaren Racing team back in 2022, and has released special edition bottles every year since. Those have basically been the same whiskey as you&rsquo;d find in a bottle of Old No. 7 with different label designs, although sometimes the proof has been bumped up. But the latest release is something totally different&mdash;Halo MK1 is a $600 bottle of whiskey aged in barrels made from staves that were seasoned for much longer than usual, and the liquid was bottled at an impressive 117.4 proof. Look for notes of caramel, chocolate, pipe tobacco, and baking spice.
<h3 dir="ltr">Unicorn Whiskey Pick of the Week</h3>
Glenmorangie Harrison Ford Limited Edition ($100)
There are a lot of celeb-backed booze brands out there, and most of them fall into the tequila category. From George Clooney&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Casamigos&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Casamigos</a> to Kendall Jenner&rsquo;s 818 to The Rock&rsquo;s Teremana, there&rsquo;s a face and persona for everyone looking for an agave spirit. The whiskey world doesn&rsquo;t have quite as many examples, but there are a few of note. Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=brother%27s+bond+bourbon&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brother&rsquo;s Bond</a> is one of the best, and it&rsquo;s a brand that the two actors seem to be quite actively involved in. More recently, Willem Dafoe partnered with smoky scotch distillery <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Laphroaig&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Laphroaig</a>. Concurrently, Harrison Ford embarked upon an ad campaign with Highland distillery <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Glenmorangie&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Glenmorangie</a> called &ldquo;Once Upon a Time in Scotland,&rdquo; and the corresponding whisky has finally arrived. It&rsquo;s aptly called Glenmorangie Harrison Ford Limited Edition, and it&rsquo;s a classic example of a single malt that you might expect from this distillery, with or without Ford&rsquo;s name attached to it.
<img src="https://directus-11-4sui.onrender.com/assets/aac13657-6d2d-4e4b-bc8f-45c25908089e.png?width=1200&amp;height=675" alt="Harrison Ford Limited Edition K V2"> 
Of course, the official line is that Ford &ldquo;co-created&rdquo; the whisky, and there might be some truth to that, but it&rsquo;s always good to take it with a grain of salt. The reality is more likely that director of whisky creation Dr. Bill Lumsden MBE and his team did most of the heavy lifting. He&rsquo;s often called the mad scientist or Willy Wonka of whisky, but we are not going to do that here because it&rsquo;s a total cliche. What we will say is that he&rsquo;s been responsible for some very unique and innovative whiskies from both Glenmorangie and its sister distillery <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Ardbeg&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ardbeg</a> over the years.
This new whisky might not fit that bill as far as going to the extremes of barley varietal or maturation experimentation, but it&rsquo;s still a very nice version of Glenmorangie&rsquo;s house style that has been given a cask finish. In other words, this is a non-age statement single malt that was initially aged in bourbon barrels and then given a secondary maturation in toasted Portuguese red wine casks. It&rsquo;s bright and zesty with notes of honey, maple, cherry, vanilla, spiced apple, orange marmalade, and dark chocolate on the palate, with a bit of heat slowly lingering beyond your final sip.
Like Laphroaig&rsquo;s collab with Willem Dafoe, Glenmorangie Harrison Ford Limited Edition stays true to the distillery&rsquo;s core character, but just gives it a little boost, a bit of a spin, a wee twist. This single malt is not the most interesting whisky Glenmorangie has ever released, but it&rsquo;s a very satisfying sipper that fans of the distillery&rsquo;s honeyed, citrusy, vanilla-infused character will certainly enjoy.

The Week in Wine and Whiskey: May 8

Whiskey drinkers tend to think of tequila in broad strokes&mdash;blanco for cocktails, reposado for adding some mellow barrel notes, a&ntilde;ejo for people who want it to taste like bourbon. But the category is far more varied than that shorthand suggests, and the best way to understand its range is to look at it the same way you&rsquo;d look at whiskey&mdash;through production choices, cask influence, and the way distillers shape flavor over time. Agave has its own voice&mdash;peppery, vegetal, often savory&mdash;and oak interacts with it differently than it does with grain. Some tequilas stay bright and distillate‑driven; others lean into sherry casks, French oak, or extended aging that pushes them into deeper, more oxidative territory.
To make sense of that spectrum, it helps to borrow a few reference points from whiskey&mdash;pairing each tequila with a whiskey whose structure makes its profile easier to understand. Here are eight tequilas that show how far the category can stretch, and are great for collectors or those just getting into the category.
<h3 dir="ltr">Tequila Ocho Single Estate A&ntilde;ejo, ($70)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Tequila+Ocho&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tequila Ocho&rsquo;s</a> Single Estate A&ntilde;ejo stays remarkably pale after a year in ex‑American oak, a deliberate choice by master distiller Carlos Camarena, whose priority is preserving the agave&rsquo;s voice rather than letting the barrel speak for it. The nose opens with aromas of cooked agave, black tea, light pepper, and a touch of honeyed sweetness, with hints of chocolate and nuts emerging on the palate. Oak plays only a structural role, adding shape without sweetness or weight. It would appeal to fans of <a href="https://www.auchentoshan.com/core-range/american-oakhttps://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Auchentoshan&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Auchentoshan American Oak</a>, a single malt scotch that is bright, citrus‑lifted, minimally oaked, and driven by the distillate rather than the depth of the cask.
<h3 dir="ltr"><a href="https://mijenta-tequila.com/products/mijenta-anejo">Mijenta A&ntilde;ejo</a> ($200)</h3>
Aged for roughly 18 months in four cask types&mdash;American oak, French oak, acacia, and cherry&mdash;<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Mijenta&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mijenta</a> A&ntilde;ejo leans into a soft, confectionary profile. The nose shows cacao nibs, butterscotch, and cooked agave, transitioning&nbsp; into dried fruit, gentle spice, and coffee on a smooth, velvety palate. The cask influence is layered but never heavy, giving the tequila a rounded sweetness and polished finish. For whiskey drinkers, this sits closest to <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Balvenie&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Balvenie 14 Caribbean Cask</a>, a Speyside single malt that is dessert‑leaning, honeyed, chocolate‑tinged, and shaped more by elegance than intensity.&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">Laelia<a href="https://laeliatequila.com/products/laelia-anejo?srsltid=AfmBOop23rsSysHL3WnsI93FlfxEPz3-Gh42erIWhyheHSxklYrwdZ-J"> A&ntilde;ejo</a> ($80)</h3>
Aged 12&ndash;14 months in French oak, Laelia A&ntilde;ejo stays light in color but not in character. The nose is buttery and agave‑forward, with pepper, cooked agave, and a touch of black tea. The palate brings gentle sweetness&mdash;caramel, soft chocolate, dried fruit&mdash;that is held in check by a clean line of agave spice. For whiskey drinkers, this brings to mind <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Michter%E2%80%99s&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Michter&rsquo;s US 1 Rye</a>, where the distillery&rsquo;s toast‑then‑char barrels build a rounded sweetness that sits in harmony with rye spice. Both spirits land in that space where pepper and sweetness meet at the center.
<h3 dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.lobos1707.com/extra-anejo">Lobos Extra A&ntilde;ejo</a> ($70)</h3>
Aged more than three years in American oak and finished in PX sherry casks, Lobos 1707 Extra A&ntilde;ejo leans into a dark, sweet, oxidative profile. The nose brings sweet tobacco, cinnamon, and orange peel, while the palate layers caramel, roasted agave, leather, and a touch of wood smoke, with a long, honey finish. Fans of <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Redbreast&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Redbreast Lustau Edition</a>, a PX‑finished Irish single pot still whiskey known for its dried‑fruit richness and chocolate‑caramel sweetness, will like it. Both spirits deliver a plush, spiced dessert‑leaning profile.
<h3 dir="ltr"><a href="https://partidatequila.com/products/tequila-roble-fino-anejo">Partida Roble Fino A&ntilde;ejo Tequila</a> ($150)</h3>
Partida&rsquo;s Roble Fino A&ntilde;ejo starts with 18 months in ex‑bourbon barrels before a five‑month finish in sherry‑seasoned single‑malt casks, and the result is one of the most layered a&ntilde;ejos in this lineup. Dried fruit, toasted oak, chocolate, and cooked agave drive the nose, with a line of pepper and a faint smokiness. It&rsquo;s reminiscent of <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Highland+Park&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Highland Park 18</a>&mdash;a lightly smoky, sherry‑rich scotch where dried fruit, chocolate, spice, and gentle smoke accent a punchy core.
<h3 dir="ltr"><a href="https://donfulano.com/products/imperial">Don Fulano Imperial</a>, ($200)</h3>
Aged more than five years across French oak, European oak, oloroso sherry, wine casks, and Hungarian oak, Don Fulano Imperial leans into true umami depth. The nose has coffee beans, dried tobacco, old leather, and dark berries; the palate follows with dark chocolate, berries, baking spices, roasted nuts and a savory brothiness that runs through the mid‑palate. It&rsquo;s a profile that echoes the character of <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Mortlach&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Mortlach 16</a>&mdash;sherried, meaty, and complex, with a dark, structured core and a long, cocoa‑rich finish.
<h3 dir="ltr"><a href="https://cazcanes.com/products/no-7-rosa-anejo">Cazcanes No. 7 Rosa A&ntilde;ejo</a>, ($140)</h3>
Only 600 bottles exist of this one‑off, three‑barrel blend. Two components were aged in uncharred French oak wine casks, the third in a lightly re‑charred American oak bourbon barrel. Together they create a profile that&rsquo;s subtle rather than showy. The nose has cinnamon, vanilla, and a little jalape&ntilde;o warmth; the palate brings gentle fruit from the wine casks and a touch of sweetness from the bourbon barrel, finishing clean with a snap of pepper. Fans of <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Compass+Box&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Compass Box&rsquo;s</a> wine-influenced blends, like <a href="https://www.compassboxwhisky.com/products/the-story-of-the-spaniard">Story of the Spaniard</a>, will likely be fans of this tequila.
<h3 dir="ltr"><a href="https://casadragones.com/us/sipping-tequila/casa-dragones-reposado/">Casa Dragones Reposado Mizunara</a> ($160)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Casa+Dragones&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Casa Dragones</a> Reposado is aged exclusively in new Mizunara oak, and the influence is immediate: sandalwood, white pepper, and a soft, almost cedar‑like perfume that sits over cooked agave. The palate is clean and lightly sweet, with hints of vanilla, citrus peel, and a gentle incense note. It&rsquo;s an unusual profile for a reposado&mdash;more aromatic than oaky&mdash;and it is a good tequila counterpart to the <a href="https://us.glendaloughdistillery.com/whiskey/7-year-mizunara">Glendalough 7‑Year Single Malt Mizunara Finish</a>.

The Best Tequila For Whiskey Fans to Drink on Cinco De Mayo—Or Any Day of the Year

Few wine regions in the world are as visually arresting as New Zealand&rsquo;s Central Otago, the world&rsquo;s most southerly grape-growing region. Jagged mountains aptly-named The Remarkables rise above glacial lakes, vineyards cling to schist-covered slopes, and the air carries a crisp alpine clarity that feels almost cinematic&mdash;and I&rsquo;m not just saying that because The Lord of the Rings was filmed here.&nbsp;
Here, Pinot Noir is king, accounting for roughly 80 percent of the region&rsquo;s vineyard plantings. But I also encountered killer Chardonnay, electrifying Riesling, and a new-to-me grape called Osteiner, which suggests the story here may be bigger than Pinot alone.
Central Otago&rsquo;s climate&mdash;cool, dry, and southern&mdash;was once considered so extreme that skeptics doubted grapes could ripen successfully here. But these are also the attributes that set it apart. Martinborough&mdash;New Zealand&rsquo;s Pinot Noir region on the North Island&mdash;is flatter, coastal and maritime, with warm gravel terraces and long dry autumns that often yield sunny, juicy, generous wines. Central Otago, by contrast, is the country&rsquo;s only true continental climate, surrounded by mountains and glacial valleys with high altitude vineyards that create dense, structured wines.&nbsp;
This continental climate brings extreme diurnal temperature variation reaching 45 degrees during the growing season. This helps the grapes achieve full ripeness, while retaining bright, natural acidity, moderate alcohol levels, and fresh aromatics.&nbsp;
Another unique aspect of Central Otago is the atmosphere. The ozone layer over the South Island is literally thinner here, allowing more UV radiation to reach the ground. Coupled with high altitude, low pollution levels, and cloudless days, that&rsquo;s a lot of sun reaching the vines. To protect themselves, grapes produce more anthocyans (color compounds) and phenolics (aromatic compounds) which contribute tannin and structure.&nbsp;
To combat high tannins and richness, the top&nbsp; Central Otago producers have moved toward earlier picking and lower alcohols. These are site-driven wines, emphasizing restrained fruit, tension, acid, minerality, and florals&mdash;practically Burgundian in nature. Tasting Pinot Noirs from the regions of Wānaka, Gibbston, Cromwell, and Bannockburn feels like tasting down the C&ocirc;te de Nuits.
<h3 dir="ltr">A Gold Rush Beginning</h3>
The area was first settled around 1862, when gold was discovered and prospectors flooded the area in a wave not unlike California&rsquo;s Gold Rush. Among them were Jean D&eacute;sir&eacute; F&eacute;raud, a French miner who planted vines, and Romeo Bragato, one of New Zealand&rsquo;s first viticulturists, who declared the region suitable for grape growing.
After a century of false starts, the late 1970s brought three pioneers&mdash;Alan Brady, Ann Pinckney, and Rolfe Mills&mdash;who started making wine in the Alpine foothills north and east of Queenstown. Brady founded Gibbston Valley winery, one of the region&rsquo;s first commercial estates. Pinckney, a trained horticulturist, briefly made wine under her Taramea label.
But it was Rolfe Mills&rsquo; Rippon that truly catapulted Central Otago onto the global stage when its 1992 Pinot Noir won Best Red Wine at the New Zealand Wine Show.
<h3 dir="ltr">Rippon: The Estate That Put Central Otago on the Map</h3>
Family legend has it that Rolfe Mills first conceived the idea of planting grapes on the family&rsquo;s Wānaka Station farm after serving in Europe during World War II. The steep schist vineyards of Portugal&rsquo;s Douro Valley reminded him of home. In 1975, Rolfe and his wife Lois planted 30 different varieties of experimental vines. Over time they narrowed their selections to Pinot Noir, Riesling, Osteiner, Sauvignon Blanc, and Gew&uuml;rztraminer.
Located about 45 miles north of Queenstown, Wānaka feels a world apart from the more populous subregions of Cromwell and Bannockburn. Cooler and slightly wetter, Rippon&rsquo;s vineyards sit above Lake Wānaka, where the lake&rsquo;s thermal mass moderates temperature swings and helps protect against frost, and near the Southern Alps, which provides a rain shadow. Ruby Island, positioned offshore, further softens the vineyard&rsquo;s climate.
Most rainfall occurs in spring, followed by hot, dry summers and extended autumns, conditions that provide a long growing season once thought impossible this far south. Cool mornings and nights preserve the region&rsquo;s hallmark acidity. According to current winemaker Nick Mills, Rolfe&rsquo;s son, those conditions create wines defined by precision and articulation of tannin over rich, fleshy fruit.
Nick assumed winemaking responsibilities after his father&rsquo;s passing and converted the estate to biodynamic farming in 2002. Under his stewardship, Rippon produces two single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, Tinker&rsquo;s Field and Emma&rsquo;s Block.
Tinker&rsquo;s Field, planted between 1986 and 1989, contains the estate&rsquo;s oldest vines on sunny north-facing slopes protected by Ruby Island. Its coarse schist soils produce powerful, structured Pinot Noirs. Emma&rsquo;s Block, planted in 1991, lies closer to the lake on east-facing ancient clay reefs interlaced with schist gravels. The wines are softer and more delicate, combining red fruit with stony minerality.
While Rippon is best known for Pinot Noir, I was intrigued by its two and a half acres of Osteiner, a German cross of Riesling and Sylvaner. Today, it is nearly extinct in Germany, with only about ten acres still planted.&nbsp;
Rippon&rsquo;s version is vivid and electric, like a wilder cousin of Riesling: high-acid and mineral-driven, with lemon pith, honeysuckle, flinty wet stone, and a seashell-like salinity. It may never rival the popularity of the estate&rsquo;s Pinot Noir, but it&rsquo;s worth seeking out.
<h3 dir="ltr">A New Generation of Estates</h3>
Rippon&rsquo;s success helped spark a wave of vineyard development throughout Central Otago.
A key figure was Stewart Elms, who established Felton Road in 1991 in Bannockburn. He later sold the winery to British entrepreneur Nigel Greening, who expanded the estate while retaining the original team.
Under winemaker Blair Walter, Felton Road produced its first Pinot Noir in 1997. Today the wines&mdash;marked by dark cherry fruit, dried florals, and wild herbs&mdash;are among Central Otago&rsquo;s most acclaimed. Critic Bob Campbell deftly summed up the 2024 Bannockburn Pinot Noir with, &ldquo;This wine makes my heart beat faster.&rdquo;
Mine did too when I tasted Felton Road&rsquo;s 2023 Bannockburn Chardonnay with a parsnip tortellini in brown butter at Queenstown&rsquo;s Rodd &amp; Gunn restaurant. The wine started out sleek and restrained, before a pop of honey and lemon curd ran across the midpalate, finishing with delicate acacia wood spice&mdash;sensual and ethereal.
Actor Sam Neill, best known for Jurassic Park, also helped bring international attention to Central Otago through his winery Two Paddocks, founded in 1993. The name comes from Neill&rsquo;s idea that he and his neighbor, film director Roger Donaldson, would each plant a paddock of vines and make wine together.
The standout wine is the Last Chance Pinot Noir, produced only in select vintages from the Earnscleugh terraces in Alexandra. Elegant, sprightly, and aromatic, the wine offers red fruit, wild thyme, and crunchy wet leaf notes while clocking in at a refreshing 12.5 percent alcohol.
<h3 dir="ltr">Burn Cottage: Pinot Noir in an Amphitheater</h3>
Burn Cottage has come later to the party, an influential estate founded in 2002 by American wine importers Marquis and Dianne Sauvage, who bought property in Cromwell.
&ldquo;We chose the Burn Cottage site due to its unique location,&rdquo; Sauvage said. &ldquo;It had the look of the great vineyards of Europe&mdash;a gentle sloping amphitheater with perfect exposure.&rdquo;
Burn Cottage&rsquo;s vines curve around a sheltered hillside basin facing northeast, maximizing sun exposure and offering protection from strong winds. The soils&mdash;broken-down schist and granite from ancient riverbeds pushed upward by glacial activity&mdash;are well suited to Pinot Noir, limiting vigor and encouraging deep root systems.
Claire Mulholland took over for Lemon as lead winemaker in 2010. Mulholland harvests over a period of three weeks, using differing percentages of whole cluster fermentation, hand plunging, and maceration lengths based on each block&rsquo;s flavors. During the fermentation process, each lot is tasted twice a day to assess its progress.
The Pinots at Burn Cottage are graceful and pretty, with fine tannins supporting cherry, raspberry bramble, violet florals, and cool stony minerality. By contrast, their Sauvage Vineyard Pinot Noir tends to be richer and more textural, with deeper blackberry fruit and firmer tannins.&nbsp;
Burn Cottage is also known for its Riesling Gr&uuml;ner Veltliner blend. About one acre of Riesling and half an acre of Gr&uuml;ner Veltliner (extremely rare in Central Otago) share a hilltop in the Burn Cottage property. Originally intended to be bottled separately, early yields were so small that the team blended them, resulting in a vibrant, food-friendly wine combining crunchy lime and ginger spice from the Riesling with stone fruit and subtle herbal notes from the Gr&uuml;ner.
<h3 dir="ltr">A Region Coming Into Its Own</h3>
Central Otago has grown from just 11 producers in 1996 to more than 130 today, quietly becoming one of the world&rsquo;s most compelling Pinot Noir regions. The unique combination of altitude, coolness, and intense sunlight creates wines that are ripe without heaviness, aromatic but structured, and fresh despite sunny days.
With Burgundy prices climbing and climate change reshaping traditional wine regions, Central Otago&rsquo;s cool southern latitude may give it an even stronger foothold in the global market.
But if the region&rsquo;s future is built on Pinot Noir, its aromatic whites shouldn&rsquo;t be overlooked. The Rieslings, Gr&uuml;ner Veltliners, Osteiners, and Chenin Blancs I encountered prove that Central Otago&rsquo;s story may be broader and more exciting than anyone expected.

New Zealand's Central Otago Wine Region is Pinot Noir Haven That Collectors Should Pay Attention To

The Kentucky Derby has come a long way over the last century and a half. The first running in 1875 was a local spectacle; now it&rsquo;s a weekend‑long operation involving hats, handicapping, traffic patterns, and a surprising amount of bourbon logistics. The julep didn&rsquo;t become the official cocktail until 1938, but by then Kentuckians had already made whiskey part of the rhythm of the day&mdash;something for the early races, a dram for the main event, and a healthy pour for the post‑race debrief when everyone&rsquo;s feet hurt.
Most people experience all of this from a living room, backyard, or party where the dress code is &ldquo;Derby‑adjacent at best,&rdquo; but the bourbon still matters. What changes each year are the bottles people reach for: special releases, seasonal editions, and the occasional showpiece that feels right for a weekend built on speed, spectacle, and very fast horses. A few of these eight bourbon picks have clear Derby lineage; the rest are here because they&rsquo;re the right pour for a weekend built around celebration, whether you&rsquo;re there in person or watching the race from a bar, a party, or your living room this Saturday, May 2.
<h3 dir="ltr">Rabbit Hole Raceking ($95)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Rabbit+Hole&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rabbit Hole</a> started with founder Kaveh Zamanian falling in love twice: first with his wife Heather, a Louisville native, and then with the city and its bourbon. The brand, which was founded in 2012, has a naming convention which comes out of that&mdash;Cavehill for the historic cemetery, Heigold for the German stonecutter&rsquo;s Butchertown home, Boxergrail for Louisville&rsquo;s boxing culture, and Dareringer as a tribute to Heather herself. <a href="https://www.rabbitholedistillery.com/pages/raceking">Raceking</a> extends that pattern into the city&rsquo;s horse racing identity, treating it as another facet of the place that pulled him in.
The original Raceking debuted in 2020 as a NAS whiskey; this new edition is aged six years and bottled at 95 proof, giving the chocolate‑malted wheat and chocolate‑malted barley in the five‑grain mashbill more room to deepen and integrate. The profile leans into notes of cocoa, roasted espresso, toffee, and warm spice.&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">Woodford Reserve Kentucky Derby Bottle ($50)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=woodford+derby&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woodford Reserve&rsquo;s</a> annual <a href="https://buynow.woodfordreserve.com/en_us/#/US-NY/quick-shop/f8b4212c-a0e4-4510-a68a-823f138789a7">Derby bottle</a> returns with artwork by Chicago‑based artist <a href="https://annapmurphy.com">Anna Murphy</a>, whose blue‑and‑white porcelain-inspired illustration anchors the 2026 release. &ldquo;At the heart of my work is a simple mission,&rdquo; Murphy said. &ldquo;To create beauty that leaves people feeling uplifted and carrying a little more wonder into the world.&rdquo;
Woodford (90.4 proof) has the kind of balance that holds up in a julep: enough body to withstand dilution, enough sweetness to keep the drink rounded, and just enough oak and citrus to show through the mint. It doesn&rsquo;t disappear under crushed ice, and the finish stays present even as the drink softens.&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">Blanton&rsquo;s Gold Barrel ($200-$300)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Blanton%E2%80%99s&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blanton&rsquo;s</a> has two calling cards: the eight horse‑and‑jockey stoppers, each frozen in a different phase of the race; and the letters they collectively spell (B‑L‑A‑N‑T‑O‑N‑S). The toppers made it a collectible; the quality of the whiskey made it a benchmark. When it launched in 1984, Blanton&rsquo;s became the first modern single‑barrel bourbon sold as a branded product, formalizing an idea that had existed informally for decades, and turning &ldquo;from one barrel&rdquo; into a category rather than a curiosity. It also means that a new bottle of Blanton&rsquo;s can taste slightly different than the last you had.
The <a href="https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/our-brands/blantons-single-barrel/blantons-gold-edition/https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Blanton%E2%80%99s+Gold+Edition&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Gold Edition</a> takes that foundation and pushes it further. Bottled at 103 proof and originally released for international markets, it&rsquo;s a deeper, spicier expression of the Blanton&rsquo;s profile&mdash;honeyed citrus, clove, toasted oak, and richer than the standard bottling. It will take a bit of a hunt to snag a bottle.
<h3 dir="ltr">Angel&rsquo;s Envy Cask Strength Bourbon and Rye ($250, $270)</h3>
<a href="https://www.angelsenvy.com/us/en/product/2026-dual-cask-strength/https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Angel%E2%80%99s+Envy+cask+strength&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Angel&rsquo;s Envy&rsquo;s highly anticipated 2026 Cask Strength release</a> arrives as a pair&mdash;a port‑finished bourbon (117.8 proof) and a 10‑year-old rum‑finished rye (111.6 proof). The bourbon comes from some of the distillery&rsquo;s oldest barrels and uses a solera‑inspired approach that incorporates re‑casked liquid from past Cask Strength releases before an extended finish in ruby port barrels. The profile has notes of chocolate-covered cherries and salted caramel. The rye, distilled from 2013&ndash;2015 and finished for up to four years in Caribbean rum casks, lands at a combined 10 years. The result is a whiskey with notes of spiced rum cake and tropical fruit.
There&rsquo;s only 20,640 bottles of the bourbon and 10,800 of the rye, and having both on hand for guests to try side-by-side would make for a memorable derby party.
<h3 dir="ltr">Michter&rsquo;s Celebration Sour Mash ($6,000)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Michter%E2%80%99s+Celebration&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Michter&rsquo;s Celebration</a> doesn&rsquo;t come out every year&mdash;it appears only when master of maturation Andrea Wilson and master distiller Dan McKee find barrels that live up to the name. The 2025 edition (115.2 proof)&nbsp; is built from just seven of the distillery&rsquo;s barrels, a mix of Kentucky straight ryes and bourbons ranging from more than 12 years old to well over 30. Each barrel is selected for how it contributes to the whole, with the goal of creating a whiskey defined by balance rather than sheer age.
Celebration helped redefine what American whiskey could look like at the top end when it debuted in 2013, and part of its appeal is that each release is genuinely unrepeatable. Only 315 bottles exist worldwide. If someone brings one to a Derby party and actually opens it, it&rsquo;s the kind of pour that changes the whole party.
<h3 dir="ltr">Knob Creek 21 Year ($170)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Knob+Creek&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Knob Creek 21 Year Old</a> (100 proof) is the oldest bourbon the James B. Beam Distilling Co.&nbsp; has ever released, following the 18‑year expression which came out in 2022, and showing how the brand&rsquo;s profile evolves at extreme age. Managing barrels this old becomes a hands‑on project&mdash;global small batch ambassador Tim Heuisler described it as &ldquo;warehouse Tetris,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t just leave a barrel in one place for 21 years and hope for the best.&rdquo; Careful management by moving barrels to cooler places in the warehouse helps keep the whiskey from going too woody, and the 21‑year old actually comes across as more lively than the 18‑year, with brown sugar, caramel, and vanilla layered over oak, leather, baking spice, and tobacco. For Derby weekend, it&rsquo;s the kind of bottle that fits the moment: a historic age statement from one of Kentucky&rsquo;s biggest names.
<h3 dir="ltr">Wild Turkey Master&rsquo;s Keep: Beacon ($300)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Wild+Turkey+Master%E2%80%99s+Keep%3A+Beacon&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">Beacon</a> closes out <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Wild+Turkey&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wild Turkey&rsquo;s</a> decade‑long <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Master%E2%80%99s+Keep&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Master&rsquo;s Keep</a> series, a run of annual limited releases built around older and harder‑to‑find stocks from the distillery&rsquo;s warehouses. This final edition brings together three generations of Russell family work: the oldest component comes from Camp Nelson barrels distilled in 2007 and 2008, part of the stock Jimmy Russell helped lay down before the 2011 expansion; Eddie Russell shaped the 16‑year portion; and Bruce Russell picked the 10‑year whiskey distilled during his early years at the distillery. At 118 proof&mdash;the highest in the series&mdash;Beacon has rich caramel and vanilla, dark fruit, oak, a bit of spice, and a long, warm finish. For Derby weekend, it is a fitting capstone: a finale to a series that brings together Wild Turkey&rsquo;s past and present in a way that matches the scale of the day.
<h3 dir="ltr">Old Forester President's Choice ($225, but can go for much more)</h3>
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Old+Forester&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc">President&rsquo;s Choice is Old Forester&rsquo;s</a> most selective single‑barrel program, built around the same idea that guided the brand&rsquo;s first private barrels in 1964.Historically, each release came from a single barrel hand‑selected by the company president. The 2025 barrels were selected by assistant master distiller Caleb Trigo and master taster Melissa Rift, drawn from stocks that typically mature between seven and nine years and bottled at whatever proof (usually in the 110&ndash;125 range) best preserves the barrel&rsquo;s character. These barrels aren&rsquo;t chosen on a schedule; they&rsquo;re released only when one shows the kind of definition and maturity that warrants the label.
Old Forester <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Birthday+Bourbon&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Birthday Bourbon</a> gets most of the attention each year as the prized unicorn, but as master distiller emeritus Chris Morris noted during a recent tasting at the Louisville brand home, President&rsquo;s Choice is the rarer of the two&mdash;a true one‑barrel‑at‑a‑time release available only at the distillery and a few national retailers. For Derby weekend, it&rsquo;s the insider pick.

The Best Bourbons to Drink While Watching the Kentucky Derby—Whether You're at Churchill Downs or At Home

What&rsquo;s happening in wine and whiskey this week:
<h3 dir="ltr">This Week&rsquo;s Unicorn Review Stories</h3>
🥃 Gina Pace picked some of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/unicorn-review/best-bourbons-kentucky-derby">best bottles of bourbon to drink during the Kentucky Derby</a> this year, from official Derby-affiliated expressions to bourbons that encompass the spirit of the event.
<h3 dir="ltr">New Bottle Releases</h3>
Abraham Bowman Special Release #26 Rye Whiskey ($80)
This is the first rye whiskey that the <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=A.+Smith+Bowman&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A. Smith Bowman</a> distillery has released since 2010. Abraham Bowman Special Release #26 (110 proof) was entirely distilled and aged onsite at the Virginia distillery, which is not always the case&mdash;this is a sister distillery to <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Buffalo+Trace&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Buffalo Trace</a>, and some of the whiskey is first distilled there or at another Sazerac distillery before being shipped to Bowman and redistilled. Look for notes of vanilla, apricot, black pepper, and spice on the palate.
Blue Run Blueprint Series ($70)
This new release takes the role of flagship bourbon for <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Blue+Run&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blue Run</a>, a brand owned by Molson Coors Beverage Company. It was blended by head of whiskey and innovation Shaylyn Gammon, combining two different mashbills&mdash;a wheated recipe and an experimental mashbill known as &ldquo;Founders' Mash&rdquo; (details are not revealed)&mdash;and bottled at 105 proof. This bourbon is meant to be sipped or used in a cocktail like an Old Fashioned, with notes of orchard fruit, vanilla, cinnamon, baking spice, and and toasted oak.
<h3 dir="ltr">Unicorn Whiskey Pick of the Week</h3>
Cedar Ridge Pete &amp; Sherri Married &mdash; 2nd Anniversary ($100)
Do you give whiskey made in Iowa much thought? And no, I&rsquo;m not talking about Templeton Rye, which is actually making whiskey at its Iowa distillery after sourcing from MGP for many years (it still does that too, to be clear). But have you heard of Cedar Ridge Distillery? That name is a reason to pay attention to Iowa whiskey, because it&rsquo;s making some really good stuff, and the latest example is the third installment in the Pete &amp; Sherri Married series, which is part of its QuintEssential Special Release series. That&rsquo;s a lot of setup, so let&rsquo;s explain what this whiskey is all about.
<img src="https://directus-11-4sui.onrender.com/assets/7402554b-da20-4539-96d8-71072fd22a0d.jpg?width=1200&amp;height=675" alt="Cedar Ridge"> 
Cedar Ridge makes different kinds of whiskey, but it excels in particular at making American single malt, which is what this new release is. The QuintEssential series focuses on this style, and for this release master blender Murphy Quint blended single malts aged from six to nine years together, and bottled it at cask strength of 116.8 proof (58.4% ABV), with no chill filtration and, of course, no color. The two main whiskeys in the blend are as follows: single malt made from two-row pale malted barley initially aged in ex-bourbon barrels from the distillery and then finished in Pedro Xim&eacute;nez and Oloroso sherry hogsheads; and peated malt whiskey initially matured in the distillery&rsquo;s bourbon barrels and then finished in amontillado sherry butts.
The result is a really complex and rich sipper, with notes of dried fruit, black pepper, creme brulee, ripe grapes and dried raisins, dark chocolate, and cinnamon. At nearly 117 proof, there&rsquo;s a flash of heat on the palate as you sip, ending with a lingering bit of warmth that lasts for a moment or so after the liquid is gone from your glass. If you like this whiskey, and I&rsquo;m pretty sure you will, there will be more to come, as the series continues to focus on different blends and cask finishes. In the meantime, give the rest of the Cedar Ridge lineup a try as well, and you may decide that Iowa whiskey is something you need to start paying more attention to.

The Week in Wine and Whiskey: May 1

In the bourbon world, there is no name that is more famous than Van Winkle. And yet the man behind the moniker, Julian Van Winkle III, is as modest as they come. The grandson of Pappy Van Winkle, Julian is the custodian of his family&rsquo;s legacy, but he is also a key figure&mdash;perhaps the key figure&mdash;in the transformation of bourbon&rsquo;s reputation from a rough-and-ready shot to a collectible luxury spirit. And yet he hardly drinks much bourbon at all anymore.
Van Winkle&rsquo;s story may be familiar to most bourbon drinkers today, but it&rsquo;s no less remarkable in the retelling. When he joined his father, Julian Van Winkle Jr., in the whiskey business in 1977, bourbon was on a downward trajectory, as baby boomers opted for clear spirits like vodka and fine wine over the brown liquor their parents favored. Faced with a glut of unwanted whiskey, distillers started offering novelty decanters meant to appeal to specific demographics like<a href="https://www.revivalky.com/1979-michters-pot-still-sour-mash-university-of-texas-football-decanter/"> Texas fans</a>,<a href="https://www.revivalky.com/1983-paramount-james-a-rhodes-ohio-statehouse-decanter-vintage/"> Ohio voters</a>, or members of the<a href="https://www.revivalky.com/1971-jim-beam-honorable-order-of-the-blue-goose-international-vintage/"> Honorable Order of the Blue Goose</a>, who would purchase the package without much regard for the liquid.
<h3 dir="ltr">Surviving the Bourbon Doldrums</h3>
The Van Winkles sold decanters of their <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Old+Rip+Van+Winkle&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Old Rip Van Winkle</a> brand as well, using wheated bourbon from the family&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Stitzel-Weller&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stitzel-Weller</a> distillery (sold in 1972 and closed in 1992)&mdash;a means of keeping the brand going during a dark time. Later, Van Winkle began purchasing bourbon from other Kentucky distilleries to bottle, trusting that the quality would be up to snuff without the need to verify ahead of time. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d buy the barrels and taste them once they came to the warehouse,&rdquo; Van Winkle recalled. &ldquo;Ninety-nine percent of the time they were just fine.&rdquo;
After his father&rsquo;s death in 1981, Van Winkle continued in the bottling business at a site he called <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Old+Commonwealth&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Old Commonwealth</a> Distillery, and began to focus on overseas markets. Japan stood out in particular as a lifeline, because consumers there couldn&rsquo;t get enough American whiskey, even as domestic consumption continued to tank. &ldquo;It kept me alive for a while,&rdquo; he said.
Van Winkle came up with numerous brands and labels exclusively for export, like<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=lottas+home&amp;state=ENDED&amp;sortBy=number_aschttps://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Lottas+Home&amp;state=ENDED&amp;sortBy=number_asc"> Lottas Home</a> and<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=society+of+bourbon+connoisseurs&amp;state=ENDED&amp;sortBy=number_aschttps://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Society+of+Bourbon+Connoisseurs&amp;state=ENDED&amp;sortBy=number_asc"> Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs.</a> At the time, these flew under the radar in the U.S., but now are some of the rarest and most collectible bottles netting auction prices in the tens of thousands of dollars. In addition to his own brands, Van Winkle bottled whiskey for others, like Marci Palatella&rsquo;s International Beverage. Unfortunately, he held onto very few of these bottlings. &ldquo;Back then, who knew?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It was just a regular bottling for me and I saw no huge value down the road for these things like they are now. I didn't see that coming at all.&rdquo;
<h3 dir="ltr">The Age Statement Era</h3>
In 1994, Van Winkle released the first <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Pappy+Van+Winkle%E2%80%99s+Family+Reserve&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pappy Van Winkle&rsquo;s Family Reserve</a>, a 20-year-old Stitzel-Weller bourbon named after his grandfather, Julian Van Winkle Sr. It hit the market inconspicuously, but garnered high scores in spirits competitions and caught enough attention that Van Winkle continued to add to the lineup, releasing a 23-year-old in 1998 and a 15-year-old in 2004. The timing was fortuitous, as bourbon was just starting to emerge from the doldrums and would eventually, by the early 2010s, surge dramatically.
By that point, the Van Winkle brand&mdash;increasingly just called &ldquo;Pappy&rdquo; by many bourbon drinkers&mdash;was so well-known that tracking down a bottle at the suggested retail price of $90 for the 20-year-old was increasingly unlikely. &ldquo;Allocation&rdquo; was the magic word, as bar, restaurant, and store owners vied for a share of each annual run, which since 2002 had been produced at <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Buffalo+Trace+Distillery&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Buffalo Trace Distillery</a> in partnership with the Van Winkles. Since there was so much demand for so few bottles, some retailers began to jack up the price, while others offered their customers the chance to purchase through a lottery or raffle. Charity auctions became another popular method for distributing the limited supply of whiskey. It&rsquo;s not an exaggeration to suggest that the Van Winkle brand is responsible for more philanthropic largesse than any other Kentucky whiskey.
<h3 dir="ltr">Iconic Status</h3>
All this, plus the allure of the wheated mashbill and the high-profile scandal of the &ldquo;<a href="https://gardenandgun.com/articles/what-netflix-gets-right-and-wrong-about-pappygate/">Pappygate</a>&rdquo; thefts at Buffalo Trace, have cemented the Van Winkle name in American whiskey lore. Pappy is a byword for rarity and luxury, the bottle&rsquo;s sepia-toned label popping up in movies and on TV, lit dramatically on back bars from Las Vegas to London. Its desirability, bolstered by cultural icons like <a href="https://x.com/Bourdain/status/146711608599642112">Anthony Bourdain</a>, has continued to grow even as other collectible bourbons took their places in the pantheon over the past decade and a half.
None of this would have happened without Julian Van Winkle keeping faith that really good whiskey would always find an appreciative audience. It goes back to the original Pappy&rsquo;s motto, which hung on a sign at Stitzel-Weller: &ldquo;We make fine bourbon. At a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon.&rdquo;
The Unicorn Review talked with Julian Van Winkle III about counterfeit bottles, unopened collections, and the infamous Pappy Jell-O shots.
<img src="https://directus-11-4sui.onrender.com/assets/69328e75-339f-43d1-9ada-5f5055eee8f5.png?width=4250&amp;height=2833" alt="Julian Van Winkle Iii">
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The Unicorn Review: Decanters were a big thing in the 1970s and &lsquo;80s, when there was a bourbon surplus. I&rsquo;ve noticed some companies offering them in the present day. Are we back to a period where some people are trying to sell the bottle more than what&rsquo;s inside it?
Julian Van Winkle III: I don't think so. I think they're just trying to do something different.
People have a lot of money these days. The decanter business went down the tubes when the retail price got to be about $49.99. That's when I quit&mdash;when the public didn't want to spend $50 for a damn decanter, not caring about the whiskey.
But it's funny, if you see these bottles and they're full, these days you save the whiskey and throw the decanter away because the whiskey was damn good. Nobody really cared about the main product back then. It's kind of ironic the way things have flipped over.
In many ways the Van Winkle brand has become bigger than your family name. Was there a moment that you noticed it had taken on a life of its own?
I think I bottled the first Pappy label in about 1994, and it got a nice rating by the Beverage Testing Institute. [The rating was 99 points. &ndash; Ed.] That kind of kicked things off for us and that brand. But when Anthony Bourdain starts talking about it and then chefs start talking about it and wine people start talking and it ends up in magazines, movies, and TV shows&hellip; It's hard to pinpoint when it happened and there was no particular thing that set it off. It was just kind of a gradual appreciation by different people. I think it happened because it's a good product. It deserves its acclaim.
Bourbon drinkers can feel a sense of ownership in brands that they really love. How do you feel about fans being possessive and emotional about your whiskey?
It certainly doesn't bother me. It bothers me when you see some guy's collection of 50 bottles of the 12-year-old sitting on their shelf in their bar that they're not enjoying, because that's why we make it. But to see the popularity and the people just going crazy over the name, and it's hard to get&mdash;it's frustrating that there's not enough to go around. I wish there was more.
There&rsquo;s a dark side to that frenzy&mdash;the thefts and counterfeits that can damage the brand&rsquo;s reputation. Is that difficult for you to witness?
It&rsquo;s upsetting that these crooks are out there and they do it with wine and ladies' handbags and whatever. Anything that's popular, the bad people seem to want to make money illegally.
Counterfeiting is a big deal and there's a lot of it. It's hard to determine if a bottle is legitimate or not, because they can counterfeit these things so well these days. So that is frustrating. We can't control it and some people are getting ripped off. That's the worst part.
We're trying to put these devices on the bottlings that you can scan and guarantee that it's legitimate or if it's been opened or not&mdash;that's good for the stuff from now on. But the older stuff out there, there's no way to guarantee unless you open the bottle and taste it.
I've tasted a counterfeit bottle before and they put in decent whiskey. Some of them just put junk in there and some of them put something that's fairly close so the customer will not know the difference.
Do you get asked to authenticate bottles?
Yeah, quite often since they're being used in all these charity auctions.&nbsp; They want to make sure they're legitimate. I do the best I can as far as looking at the packaging and the bottling date etched in the glass and printed on the bottom of the glass bottle.
I haven't really detected that many fakes. Buffalo Trace, of course, they have a lab and they can determine in a heartbeat, once they open the bottle and check it, if it's bad or not. They probably get a lot of the questionable bottles.
Some people call everything in the lineup &ldquo;Pappy.&rdquo; Does that drive you crazy?
Not really. I mean, a little bit just because they're not paying attention, but that's the way it is. It's fine. It's a little annoying if they say, give me some of that Pappy rye whiskey or whatever, when it's not that particular label, but I can live with that. At least they're interested in our whiskey and not somebody else's.
What did you think of the Louisville bar owner who served his Van Winkle allocation in<a href="https://robbreport.com/food-drink/spirits/pappy-van-winkle-jell-o-shots-follow-up-1235620892/"> Jell-O shots</a>?
I kind of go both ways on that. I think I just read the other day that his place had<a href="https://www.wdrb.com/news/business/a-true-adventure-downtown-louisville-bar-to-close-after-12-years/article_bd78169b-c050-4513-ba1f-4b7a10c2f02c.html"> gone out of business</a>. It was kind of a gimmicky thing. I think he was upset because he didn't get a very good allocation, so he decided to just say to hell with it and make something ridiculous like a Jell-O shot. I think he took advantage of the popularity and presented it as a publicity stunt. I guess it's a good idea if you're him, but not if you're the producer.
In the past few years a new company started up under the name Old Commonwealth. Did you sell them the trademark?
No, unfortunately I just let it go. I saw no need for it. I knew we weren't going to keep the Old Commonwealth brand because Buffalo Trace wasn't interested in bottling it as a spinoff brand. The name lapsed as far as the trademark.
These folks picked it up and they're using it as best they can, purchasing whiskey from other distilleries. I've tasted some of them; it's pretty good. Even the Old Commonwealth package is pretty much the same, and there's some others that they've duplicated using what we did, which is kind of screwy. They're nice folks, but I wish I had hung onto it because they probably would've paid pretty good money for it.
Fifteen years ago, you did an<a href="https://nunncenter.net/ohms-spokedb/render.php?cachefile=2010oh059_bik016_ohm.xml"> interview</a> with the University of Kentucky in which you had to define wheated bourbon, and you named the five others that were available besides yours. Now there are dozens of distilleries making wheaters, due at least partly&mdash;maybe mostly&mdash;to the fact that you popularized the style in the modern era. Is this an unmitigated positive thing, or is the abundance of wheated bourbon diluting what makes it so special?
It&rsquo;s an honor to have someone duplicate what you're doing. We're not sure where exactly what distillery made the first wheated bourbon. It was either the <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Old+Fitzgerald&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Old Fitzgerald</a> plant in Frankfort back before Pappy bought the label, back when he started Stitzel-Weller, or it could have been the Stitzel Distillery who made whiskey for the Wellers. There&rsquo;s the problem with bourbon history&mdash;none of it's written down.
Pappy liked the wheated brand, obviously, and stuck with it, so all the brands at Stitzel-Weller were wheated. It's an honor that people have seen how popular it is as far as our brand, so they're trying to duplicate it or at least make their own wheated bourbon.
Do you ever drink rye bourbon?
I like Buffalo Trace, some older <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Wild+Turkey&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Wild Turkey</a>, and a particular <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Four+Roses&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Four Roses</a> single barrel&mdash;I don't remember which one. Some of the other rye-based bourbons I am not that fond of. And I haven't tried many of the new ones because there's just too many, all these craft distilleries out there.
I drink very little anymore. We hardly ever have our whiskey sitting around the house, to be honest with you. If there's anything, it's going to be a bottle of Weller, which is the same recipe, just a younger version of ours. That would be my go-to for sure, back when bourbon was a regular drink of mine.
When we hooked up with Buffalo Trace 20-something years ago, [then-CEO] Mark Brown said, &ldquo;One of the things I'd like you to do to make this thing work is promote <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Weller&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Weller</a>." Mission accomplished. Now it's hard to find in most places.
There&rsquo;s a lot of speculation that you&rsquo;re getting rich off all these inflated shelf prices for Pappy. I even found an article purporting to disclose your net worth. What&rsquo;s the real story?
We sell to the distributor and the distributor has a certain markup. He makes his 20 percent or 30 percent or whatever it is, and then when it hits the retail store, it's out of our hands. That&rsquo;s where the huge markup comes. We have nothing to do with that. We still split [profits] with Buffalo Trace when we sell it. We get a normal profit, but we're certainly not getting that huge profit that the retail stores are. They're obviously taking advantage of the supply and demand.
Have you ever tried &ldquo;<a href="http://bourbonr.com/blog/poor-mans-pappy/">Poor Man&rsquo;s Pappy</a>&rdquo;?
I can't even remember what the actual recipe is for the knockoff Pappy. I've never tried it myself. I&rsquo;ll have to do that sometime.
You said you are not drinking as much bourbon these days, but are there any bottles you&rsquo;ve held onto that you want to open with a grandchild or on a significant date?
I did keep some of the older whiskey that I bottled back at Lawrenceburg and some at Buffalo Trace. Through the years we've used them at my children's weddings.
I like wine a lot too, and if you&rsquo;ve got a really nice bottle of wine, you never know what's the best opportunity to open it. How good an opportunity or an event does it have to be? I'm always kind of reluctant to open it up. I'm that way with the whiskeys also. But I do have supply that we can use for when a grandchild becomes 21 and so forth.
Your son Preston followed you into the whiskey industry and your three daughters opened their own lifestyle business,<a href="https://pappyco.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooRVzIqu2ZTfgKQFNdISb-f8YtF-i7hLfsLuVKpt_QK-RNhvbOk"> Pappy &amp; Company</a>. Do you expect the grandkids will join someday too?
They&rsquo;re a little young yet. We're not going to force it on them. They&rsquo;ve got to make their own decision. But we&rsquo;re planning on hopefully having some of these grandkids be in the business. They&rsquo;d be the fifth generation. The third generation usually screws it up, which is my generation. So I&rsquo;m trying not to do that. There&rsquo;s still time to screw it up, but I&rsquo;m hanging in there.

 Setting the Bourbon Benchmark: An Interview with Pappy Van Winkle's Julian Van Winkle

Whether it&rsquo;s food or music, a good collaboration combines the best of both worlds&mdash;think chocolate and peanut butter, or Jay-Z and Linkin Park. When done right, these partnerships can pull in fans from either side, but are especially appealing to those who appreciate both parties. The same is true in the world of spirits, where new releases drive sales and a good team-up can substantially increase an existing audience.
<h3 dir="ltr">Sports Partnership Potential</h3>
The goal of a collab is to drum up excitement, and that has certainly been the case this spring as spirits brands in all categories have announced commemorative releases for the forthcoming World Cup, which is hosted this year by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Diageo serves as an official tournament sponsor, and this past March the global spirits giant announced the release of a limited-edition green-and-gold <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=don+julio+1942&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Don Julio 1942</a>, along with a series of <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Buchanan%E2%80%99s&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Buchanan&rsquo;s</a> bottles designed by LA-based brand Kids of immigrants. Both releases commemorate the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
&ldquo;Sports collaborations and crossover releases help Buchanan&rsquo;s show up in culture in a way that goes beyond traditional spirits marketing,&rdquo; said Jesse Damasheck, whiskey portfolio SVP North America for Diageo. &ldquo;With this collection, we&rsquo;re creating a bridge between sport, music, fashion, and lifestyle that feels real, not imposed. It&rsquo;s not about inserting ourselves into culture, but about meeting consumers where they are already living and creating and finding ways to tap into that identity authentically.&rdquo;
Dameasheck acknowledged the way that Buchanan&rsquo;s has been embraced by the Latino community, making the World Cup a perfect crossover opportunity. But there are other non-Diageo brands on the pitch as well. <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Clase+Azul&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Clase Azul</a> released a commemorative &ldquo;Spirit of Champions&rdquo; bottle priced at $1,700 (not officially affiliated with the World Cup, but inspired by it). On the other end of the price spectrum, Bacardi is releasing a limited edition gold rum featuring a soccer ball on the label at just $13. Kansas City&rsquo;s J. Rieger &amp; Co distillery is capitalizing on its role as a host city with a &ldquo;Raise the Cup&rdquo; edition of its Kansas City Whiskey, priced at $48.
<h3 dir="ltr">Collabs Beyond the Cup</h3>
It&rsquo;s clear there&rsquo;s a lot of hype heading into the 2026 World Cup, but does that same excitement exist for these limited edition bottles? And, more broadly speaking, what is the market&rsquo;s appetite for a sporty spirit?
Beyond the Raise the Cup bottle, <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=J.+Rieger&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">J. Rieger</a> president Andy Rieger estimates that the distillery has worked on at least a dozen sports collaborations, including a commemorative whiskey to celebrate Kansas winning the 2022 NCAA men&rsquo;s basketball championship, and two vodkas celebrating the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl in 2022 and 2023. One challenge, he said, is that despite category troubles, beer remains the go-to drink for fans, especially when they are at stadiums watching games.
In many ways, beer brands are the more logical partner for sports teams&mdash;there is a contextual familiarity, and beer&rsquo;s lower ABV lends it to more sessionable consumption and larger sales volume. Fans do not consume spirits the same way they do beer, even if both products are catering to fandom in similar ways. &ldquo;Right around the start of COVID, sports teams started viewing spirits [in the same way]&nbsp; as beer,&rdquo; Rieger said, calling his brand a guinea pig of sorts for sports and spirits collaborations. One lesson he&rsquo;s learned along the way is to make these collaborations limited rather than year-round offerings.
Another lesson: there needs to be something special about the bottle or the spirit. He referenced a barrel of 10-year-old whiskey made with champagne yeast that was distilled the day after the Kansas City Royals won the 2015 World Series, and is just being bottled now. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s [about] finding those moments of enjoyment, but not making things consistent and persistent,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Collaboration projects are fun, but they get stale.&rdquo;
Surprisingly, Rieger is not so enthusiastic about sports collaborations in general, unless it's a commemorative limited release. &ldquo;Then it&rsquo;s clear and obvious what the purpose of it is,&rdquo; he said. The Raise The Cup edition, for example, is part of an effort to welcome visitors to the city and guide them to landmarks, restaurants, and bars during their stay. Rieger talks about making a lasting impression with these collaborations and using them as a way to capture new drinkers while allowing the quality of the whiskey to bring them back for more.
In this way, spirits pegged to specific events like a tournament or championship function better than simply licensing a team's logo. Either the moment or the spirit needs to have impact and to convey something special&mdash;and smart partnerships can do that. &ldquo;Sports teams so often treat them not as collaborations, but as sponsorships,&rdquo; Rieger said. &ldquo;There needs to be more partnership.&rdquo;
<h3>Kentucky Bourbon Enters the Picture</h3>
Partnership was central to <a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Elijah+Craig&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elijah Craig&rsquo;s</a> 2025 Ryder Cup Small Batch release, a bourbon finished for eight weeks with toasted sugar maple and applewood staves. Elijah Craig was the official sponsor of the Ryder Cup and has a team of golf ambassadors including PGA pros J.T. Poston and Robert MacIntyre.&nbsp;
&ldquo;We believe the most effective sports collaborations are rooted in shared values, not just visibility,&rdquo; said Max Stefka, assistant vice president of global whiskey brands at Heaven Hill. Collector status is earned when a collaboration transcends marketing and becomes culturally or emotionally meaningful. From a sports perspective, moments matter.
In other words, the products become a time-stamp of occasions that the consumer is already passionate about. &ldquo;When a collaboration reflects both the heritage of the sport and the heritage of the brand, it resonates more deeply, and that&rsquo;s what drives collectability,&rdquo; Stefka said.&nbsp;
While Elijah Craig found success innovating with its Ryder Cup collaboration, there is value in label-driven releases as well. According to Julian Garcia, VP of marketing for Tequila Don Julio, early response to the brand&rsquo;s World Cup release, which has been available for pre-sale since February, has centered on the bottle&rsquo;s design and its appeal as a collectible item.&nbsp;
<a href="https://www.unicornauctions.com/search?term=Woodford+Reserve&amp;state=LIVE%26UPCOMING&amp;sortBy=number_asc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Woodford Reserve</a> has found similar success with its annual Kentucky Derby bottle, which taps a different artist each year to design a custom label. These bottles become collectible for their visual artistry as well as their limited availability, and in terms of celebrating a moment, they have become fixtures of Derby parties in Kentucky and beyond.
&ldquo;The Derby bottle is absolutely a centerpiece at Derby parties, whether someone is mixing Mint Juleps or Spires or pouring it neat for guests,&rdquo; said Woodford Reserve master distiller Elizabeth McCall. &ldquo;But it's also a collector's item that people proudly display. We've been releasing these bottles since 1999, with a new artist and design each year for many fans, it's become a tradition to add the latest edition to their collection. It really lives in both worlds.&rdquo;
And that is the true sweet spot for sports and spirit collaborations&mdash;they serve as collectors items for some and as a celebratory focal point for others. These bottles mark occasions, reminding you with their presence of memories shared, and, if you&rsquo;re lucky, championships won. So will these World Cup bottles be collectible? It depends on who lifts the trophy and what that means to you in the end.&nbsp;

Brands are Releasing World Cup Themed Bottles—But Can Sports and Spirits Collabs Truly Become Collector’s Items?

Since the early 2000s, Gamay Noir has skyrocketed in popularity, and there are a few reasons why. First and foremost, Gamay, as it&rsquo;s known, is as easy to drink as it is to pronounce. Second, it&rsquo;s often produced using a very specific technique (carbonic maceration), which maintains a generous fruit profile and means the wines are enjoyed by a vast range of drinkers. Third, the grape has been embraced by those making low-intervention wine&mdash;that is, wines made without additions or manipulations.&nbsp;
I started drinking Gamay for two reasons. First, Pinot Noir from Burgundy was just getting to be too expensive, and these light-bodied but somewhat similar reds from nearby Beaujolais seemed like a solid replacement. Then I&nbsp; began working for the Paris Wine Company, an exporter with an epic Beaujolais portfolio; the more of these high-acid, fruit-forward wines I drank, the more I fell in love with them.
<h3 dir="ltr">Bright Over Bold</h3>
My trajectory with the grape is similar to that of many wine drinkers. When we first get into wine, we often gravitate towards the big, the bold, and the fruity&mdash;unsurprisingly, as our palates are wired to love all things ripe and sweet. However, as time goes on, our beloved bold wines can start to feel overpowering, and zesty, palate-cleansing acidity is what we crave. You know how kids tend to prefer sweets and candy at snacktime while adults favor salty potato chips? Kind of like that.&nbsp;
As wine drinkers gain experience, their palates generally begin to crave bright over bold. So Gamay becomes a great choice&mdash;though the grape hasn&rsquo;t always had it easy. The Beaujolais Nouveau fad of the 1980s did a number on the grape&rsquo;s reputation. Many wine drinkers, rightfully so, began to associate it with thin, characterless juice. Also, the simultaneous rise of Robert Parker&rsquo;s Wine Advocate&mdash;cue 100-point scores for ripe, overoaked, high-alcohol wines&mdash;was a PR nightmare for the variety.&nbsp;
But here&rsquo;s the truth: when produced thoughtfully, Gamay-based wines are simply magical. Their vibrant acidity makes them perfect for serving chilled and in their youth, yet serious examples can undeniably stand the test of time. Well-made Gamay shows such a distinct purity of fruit, like freshly squeezed juice mixed with sunshine; it&rsquo;s almost impossible not to become immediately captivated.
<h3>Global Gamay</h3>
As with any grape variety, place plays a major role in the flavor profile of wine, and Gamay is no exception. Gamay is grown worldwide&mdash;namely in France, the U.S. (Oregon, California), Switzerland, and Australia. However, the variety is especially synonymous with its Beaujolais, which thrives in the region&rsquo;s granite-based soils. Beyond the overarching Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages appellations, it&rsquo;s important to note that the region&rsquo;s best examples come from its 10 crus: St-Amour, Juli&eacute;nas, Ch&eacute;nas, Moulin-&agrave;-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, R&eacute;gni&eacute;, Brouilly, and C&ocirc;te de Brouilly. These areas have stricter quality regulations, along with higher-elevation vineyards and older vines, which often translates to better-quality juice in the bottle.&nbsp;
For those looking to get acquainted with the region, Domaine Jean Foillard Morgon ($34) is a great gateway. Foillard is best known as one of the key players in Beaujolais&rsquo; original &lsquo;Gang of Four,&rsquo; alongside Marcel Lapierre, Jean Guy Breton, and Jean-Paul Th&eacute;venet, who, during the 1980s, championed organic farming, natural winemaking, carbonic maceration, and little to no sulfur additions far before the practices were as fashionable as they are today.&nbsp;
Elisa Gu&eacute;rin, a producer I first got wind of via my work at Paris Wine Company, is another great example. Her ​​Moulin-&agrave;-Vent Les Thorins is a pure and precise example of how approachable-yet-serious Gamay from Beaujolais can be&mdash;it&rsquo;s juicy, bright, and all things strawberry and red candy, yet can perfectly hold its own against hearty foods on the table. Like Foillard, Guy Breton, vinifies his old vine bottling from the village of Morgon ($44) with semi-carbonic Gamay, though the concentration from the old vines in this cuv&eacute;e sends the fruit in a slightly riper, darker direction&mdash;black cherry and plum, though with a rustic, minerally finish.&nbsp;
Not all Gamay from Beaujolais uses carbonic maceration. On the contrary, a number of growers still prefer traditional fermentation, and these wines are likely better options for those who prefer a bit more body to their Gamay. Take Jean-Paul Brun at Domaine des Terres Dor&eacute;es for example. His Fleurie ($29) is vinified using destemmed fruit and traditional fermentation with native yeasts, then is matured in a combination of concrete tanks and used oak barrels. Deemed more &lsquo;Burgundian&rsquo; in style, the wine showcases a more structured side of Gamay, which certainly elevates its cellar-worthy potential.&nbsp;
Domestically, Oregon has become a source for thoughtful, delicious expressions of Gamay. Division Winemaking Co&rsquo;s 'Les Petits Fers' Gamay Noir ($28) is high-toned and crunchy, combining&nbsp; carbonic maceration and traditional fermentation in&nbsp; multiple formats&nbsp; (stainless steel, concrete, and neutral oak). The wine also showcases notes of violet, black tea, and pepper, which adds a layer of complexity&mdash;it&rsquo;s really a wine that punches far above its weight.&nbsp;
Brick House makes a Gamay Noir from Ribbon Ridge ($37), made from destemmed fruit and traditional, non-carbonic fermentation with wild yeasts. Fresh and savory, the wine&rsquo;s refined rusticity makes it a go-to option for those seeking something a bit juicier&mdash;think medium bodied and aromatic, but with notes of cinnamon, tea leaf, and star anise.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;ve seen many wine fads come and go, though Gamay&rsquo;s renaissance has stood firm&mdash;and rightfully so. Its innate juiciness, freshness, and crystalline fruit character are invigorating, like the way the sun feels on your skin during the earliest days of spring. I can&rsquo;t think of a time when I&rsquo;ve turned down a glass, especially if the weather is warm and the vibes are on point. If you&rsquo;re looking for something to spark joy, start here&mdash;I promise you can&rsquo;t go wrong.

A Guide to Gamay Noir—An Affordable and Complex Red Wine Worth Collecting

The organic movement is based around two central concepts: making sure our food sources have a gentler impact on the planet, and offering a healthier alternative to factory farming by eschewing the use of chemicals and pesticides. Given that whiskey is essentially a value-added agricultural product, it makes sense that consumers are seeking out distilleries and brands with a lesser carbon footprint that adhere to organic practices.&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">Journeyman's Journey to Organic Spirits</h3>
At the Journeyman Distilleries in both Three Oaks, Michigan and Valparaiso, Indiana, founders Johanna and Bill Welter knew from the start that they wanted to create organic spirits. &ldquo;We were definitely inspired by KOVAL,&rdquo; said Johanna Welter, referring to the small Chicago craft distillery. Terroir and sense of place were important concepts to the couple, and they felt they could express this by using local ingredients. &ldquo;We wanted to tell the story of the region,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Cherries and apples are king here in Michigan, so we decided to source [local] cherries and apple cider. The sources that we get it from are not certified organic, so while those items are not organic, all of our [other] spirits that we produce are.&rdquo;
From the getgo, the Welters were focused on sustainability as well as organic practices, so they decided to reuse and repurpose as much as possible. Their first venture was to turn a former corset factory into their Michigan distillery. &ldquo;Featherbones were invented in this factory,&rdquo; said Welter. &ldquo;If you take a handful of turkey quills and you bind them together, it becomes a flexible bone structure invented by a guy named E.K. Warren. For us, reusing old buildings is sustainability. What we did both in Michigan and Indiana is as green as you can get, which is repurposing what was already there.&rdquo;
They also incorporated practices like using glass bottles instead of plastic, trading spent grains for beef from local farmers, and even using spent gin botanicals to make pickles. Today, the spent grains from both Journeyman locations are sent to a biodigester, where they generate clean energy for the local power grid.
&ldquo;Sustainability and organic has always been part of who we are as people,&rdquo; Welter explained. &ldquo;We took an old building from the 1890s, and rather than building something new and creating a new footprint, we decided to bring something back to life that was here before. We wanted to source the best ingredients that we could, and being located in the Midwest, we have access to all of these great farmers that grow grains&mdash;and not just corn, but a lot of ryes and wheat. We had access to an organic co-op that we could source all of this high-quality grain from.&rdquo;
<h3 dir="ltr">The Benefits of Regenerative Agriculture&nbsp;</h3>
Still, there are challenges when it comes to making organic whiskey, she said. For example, larger operations don&rsquo;t have access to the volumes of organic grains they would need. Welter pointed out that there are distillers who have one organic product and ten conventional products because they just can&rsquo;t get enough organic grain to make the switch. Farming organic grain is a challenge because of high costs and difficulties with disease and pest management, so organic distillers have to be agile about where their grains come from in any given growing season.
There is a way to fill at least some of that gap. Regenerative agriculture shares a lot of commonalities with organic agriculture, in that the main concern is maintaining soil health over time and minimizing water usage, which is believed to result in healthier plants and better outputs. Maker&rsquo;s Mark made a huge splash with their partially Regenified wheat whiskey, Star Hill Farm, which was first released last year. Even Brother&rsquo;s Bond, a celebrity brand created by actors Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder, has leaned into regeneratively grown grains with their Brother&rsquo;s Bond Regenerative Grain Bourbon release.&nbsp;
According to Welter, when Journeyman opened its doors consumers were barely able to wrap their heads around the distilling process, let alone the organic aspect of it. Nowadays, however, those same consumers are actively seeking out organic alternatives. People are more interested than ever&mdash;not just in the authenticity of the spirits they buy, but also the impact their choices have on the environment. Journeyman recognized that from the beginning, starting with a MOSA organic certification and leading to its current USDA organic certification.&nbsp;
Organic and regenerative are not green-washed corporate buzzwords in the whiskey industry. On the contrary, there are numerous distillers locking in the benefits of what are often better-tasting grains, as well as the bragging rights associated with reduced carbon footprints. In the long term, the world will be better off for it.
<h3 dir="ltr">Organic Whiskeys To Try</h3>
<a href="https://www.journeyman.com/spirits/corsets-whips-whiskey/">Journeyman Corsets Whips &amp; Whiskey</a> ($65)
This award-winning wheat whiskey is made from 100% organic Michigan-grown wheat and is bottled at cask strength. It is one of Journeyman&rsquo;s most highly sought-after whiskeys.
<a href="https://www.koval-distillery.com/whiskey/thresh-and-winnow-10-year-rye">Koval Thresh &amp; Winnow 10 Year 100% Rye</a> ($100)
Koval&rsquo;s 10-year, 100% rye whiskey is not only organic, it&rsquo;s also certified Kosher by the Orthodox Union, and has won two gold medals at two competitions since being released in 2024.
<a href="https://hiddenbarnwhiskey.com/series/">Hidden Barn Organic Wheated Bourbon</a> ($90)
Made at the Neeley Family Distillery in Sparta, Kentucky, this bourbon was crafted in partnership with Old Forester alum Jackie Zykan. It has a mashbill of 70% corn, 20% wheat, and 10% malted barley and is fermented with wild-caught yeast.
<a href="https://www.bainbridgedistillers.com/products/yama-whiskey">Bainbridge Yama Mizunara Cask Single Grain Whiskey</a> ($576)
This barley whiskey is made from 100% Washington-grown USDA Organic unmalted Alba and Full Pint barley, and is the world&rsquo;s first non-Japanese whiskey to be matured exclusively in virgin Mizanura oak barrels.
<h3 dir="ltr">Regenerative Whiskeys To Try</h3>
<a href="https://www.drylanddistillers.com/products/100-straight-white-sonora-wheat-whiskey-regenerative-grain">Dry Land 100% White Sonora Wheat Whiskey</a> ($107)
This wheat whiskey is made from 100% Regenerative Organic Certified grain from Jones Farms Organics, and was a special release to celebrate Dry Land&rsquo;s seventh anniversary.
<a href="https://www.makersmark.com/en-us/whisky/star-hill-farm-whisky">Star Hill Farm Wheat Whiskey</a> ($100)
In addition to being the first new whiskey style and brand made in Maker&rsquo;s Mark&rsquo;s history, this wheat whiskey is partially regeneratively grown. Subsequent batches will be fully Regenified Certified.
<a href="https://brothersbondbourbon.com/products/brothers-bond%C2%AE-regenerative-grain-bourbon">Brother&rsquo;s Bond Regenerative Grain Bourbon</a> ($60)
This four-grain blend of bourbons with a derived mash bill of 73% corn, 10% rye, 8% wheat, and 9% malted barley showcases actors Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley&rsquo;s commitment to sustainability.

When it Comes to Whiskey, "Organic" Isn't Just a Buzzword—This Practice Can Result in Fantastic Spirits That Are Better For the World 

Sylvester &lsquo;Sly&rsquo; Inda&rsquo;s wine career has come a long way since his Barefoot Moscato days. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Inda and his family moved to the Bronx when he was just eight years old. His parents had a relatively conservative attitude towards alcohol, which was a big reason why he didn&rsquo;t first taste wine until he was studying pre-law at college (insert said liter-sized bottle of Barefoot Moscato here). Upon graduating, Inda quickly realized he needed a job, and that law school was likely out due to the outrageous cost. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s when I walked into Keens Steakhouse to interview as a server, but the wine director and owner saw something greater in me,&rdquo; he recalled.&nbsp;
Enter John McClements, the wine director who took Inda under his wing as a cellar assistant&mdash;and who would inevitably change his career trajectory. &ldquo;I believe their plan was to mentor me to eventually become either a wine director or someone in the industry who represented unbiased and unpretentious values in the world of wine,&rdquo; Inda said. His simple curiosity about wine quickly morphed into a full-fledged passion under McClements&rsquo; leadership. &ldquo;Realizing that wine is a part of our history as humans&mdash;through empires, religion and cultures&mdash;really sent me down the rabbit hole,&rdquo; he explained.&nbsp;
Inda&rsquo;s hard work as a cellar rat eventually paid off, and he was offered the role of assistant wine director at Keens, a position he held until the COVID-19 pandemic. While restaurants remained closed, Inda stayed busy with retail stints at Verve Wine in New York and Coolvines in New Jersey, though his passion for service remained. Post-pandemic, he immediately jumped back into &ldquo;more challenging floor roles,&rdquo; namely at Daniel Boulud&rsquo;s Le Pavillon and Danny Meyer&rsquo;s Gramercy Tavern, where he would ultimately become the head sommelier.&nbsp;
In November 2025, Inda was offered the prestigious wine director role at Ci Siamo, the Italian-focused outpost of Meyer&rsquo;s Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). While Gramercy Tavern has an expansive wine list representing regions around the world, according to Inda 90 percent of Ci Siamo&rsquo;s selections hail from Italy. &ldquo;The list is classic in its approach, representing traditional wines from Piedmont and Tuscany,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but it also promotes smaller, lesser-known regions like Lazio, Abruzzo, and Liguria.&rdquo;
The restaurant also focuses on native Italian grape varieties, like Pelaverga in Piedmont, Teroldego in Trentino-Alto Adige, Verdicchio in Le Marche, and everything in between. But Inda said that Ci Siamo&rsquo;s list is still accessible and should not be intimidating. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re especially proud of our value-driven wines&rdquo;, he said, noting that 40 percent of the list is priced under $100 and a whopping 70 percent can be purchased for less than $200.
While Chef Hillary Sterling&rsquo;s seasonal pastas and wood-fired dishes are unsurprisingly the main driver of the wine selection, Inda believes that staff input also plays an important role. &ldquo;When it comes to picking a wine for the list, everyone on the team tastes and votes, almost like a wine jury,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Your team has to be just as excited about the wines as you are, so that the excitement can trickle down to the rest of the staff and, ultimately, to the guests.&rdquo;
Below are few of Inda&rsquo;s current favorites.
<h3 dir="ltr">2014 Cascina Baricchi &lsquo;Ca Va Sans Dire&rsquo; Vino Bianco Piemonte ($145)</h3>
One of the many whites that I am excited about is this Timorasso from Cascina Baricchi, which is crafted from vines planted in the 1950s on clay and limestone soils. People may know of Cascina Barrichi and their legendary Barbaresco (fruit that the legendary Bruno Giacosa used to purchase frequently), but this Timorasso is built for age&mdash;this one has more than 10 years on it! On the palate, the wine is vibrant and complex, with a rich nutty and salty texture, reminiscent of aged White Burgundy.
<h3 dir="ltr">1994 Colli di Catone &lsquo;Lazio Colle Gaio&rsquo; Vino Bianco ($295 on Ci Siamo list)</h3>
This white wine from Lazio, which is made from the Malvazia del Lazio variety, is also built to last. Now with 32 years of age on it, this wine is drinking beautifully, especially with the Guanciale and black pepper of our rigatoni. It&rsquo;s full-bodied yet vibrant, with notes of hazelnuts, baked peaches, tangerines, oranges, and a hint of petrol. It&rsquo;s got that touch of honey that comes with age, and is perfect for fans of back-vintage Alsatian Riesling. It&rsquo;s a true rarity and a treat, as I&rsquo;m sure not many bottles are left in the world.&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">2023 Cantine Barbera 'Ammano #11&rsquo; Zibibbo Sicily&nbsp; ($42)</h3>
Orange wine is a category that&rsquo;s very misunderstood. Fruit for this wine is grown on the southwest coast of Menfi, and is the representation of the Sicilian coast in a glass. From winemaker Marilena Barbera, only 218 bottles of this special wine were produced in 2023. Robust and fresh, the wine shows flavors of apricots, tangerines, beeswax, and pineapple. It&rsquo;s a very humble and pure project from a modest producer with high-quality results.
<h3 dir="ltr">2024 Fratelli Alessandria 'Speziale' Verduno Pelaverga ($72)</h3>
On the Ci Siamo list, we have plenty of Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello. But what often stands out are other grapes of these famed regions that are made so well for immediate drinking. One of these bottles may be the best Pelaverga ever made: Fratelli Allesandria&rsquo;s Speziale Pelaverga from Verduno. Fruit for this wine hails just a few hills over from La Morra. On the palate, the wine is light, juicy, and bright, yet still very complex. Notes of bing cherry, watermelon, and papaya make it easy to drink, coupled with vibrant acidity and soft tannins. The wine was first made in 1973 for family consumption, and is sold in very small commercial quantities today.
<h3 dir="ltr">2020 Il Bio Selvatico Toscano Rosso ($60)</h3>
[Given that we have] an Italian wine list, we have to give some love to Sangiovese. The grape is often deemed the &ldquo;wild cowboy&rdquo; variety of Italian wines, mainly because it can be untamed, assertive, rustic in nature, and unapologetic in style. This expression is produced from just five hectares of land farmed using a holistic approach. Vinified with 100% whole clusters by way of good ole&rsquo; foot stomping, the resulting wine is one of the purest expressions of Sangiovese that I have ever tasted. Notes of earth, smoke, leather, flint, and sage dominate, making the wine powerful yet light on its feet. It unapologetically embodies the cowboy grape we call Sangiovese.

The Hidden Gems on My Wine List: Ci Siamo’s Sylvester Inda

Rare are the homebars of the 21st century that are equipped with a brandy warmer. The sideways snifter propped above a flickering tea candle feels more like a vestige from some old Alfred Hitchcock picture, slowly warming the spirit to release volatile aromatics. Overall, brandy is often thought of as a stodgy spirit these days, with just a few select strongholds keeping its legacy alive. But, as grape-based spirits struggle to gain traction with new consumers, it is the perfect moment for the category to reinvent itself.
Brandy&rsquo;s plight has been particularly acute in recent years. According to data from IWSR, the global leader for beverage alcohol data and insights, the compound annual growth rate for brandy in the US from 2022 to 2024 was -7 percent, worse than any other spirit category during the same period. Just this January, <a href="https://www.lvmh.com/en/publications/solid-performance-in-a-disrupted-global-economic-and-geopolitical-environment">LVMH reported</a> that cognac sales in the U.S. and China in particular were weighing down the company&rsquo;s declining revenue. While the traditional centers of brandy production lag, now is the time for new regions to court international consumers with intriguing grape spirits that satisfy both wine and whiskey lovers equally.&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">Brandy for the Wine Lovers</h3>
Brandy follows in the footsteps of wine, and, like wine, brandy relies on both varietal and environmental factors to determine its expression of flavor. Some of the most exciting brandies out there are speaking the oenophile&rsquo;s language of terroir, drawing on unique selection of varietals, high altitude growing, and windswept vineyards to create distinct spirits.&nbsp;
It should come as no surprise that some of the most ancient wine producing regions of the world craft legacy brandies. Georgia, which has produced wine for around 8,000 years, has enjoyed a recent resurgence in the international popularity of its wine. Brandy may follow suit.The country&rsquo;s oldest brandy house, which once sold to the Russian Czar and was later run by the Soviet Union, was only reprivatized and reintroduced to the world in the last two decades. Through all of this, <a href="https://www.sarajishvili.com/home">Sarajishvili</a> has been making brandy aged in oak since 1884.&nbsp;
What&rsquo;s most exciting about Sarajishvili&rsquo;s brandies, beyond its oak-mellowed, balanced-but-sharp VSOP, is that the house relies heavily on some of the beloved native grape varietals of Georgia. Local grapes like Chinuri, Goruli Mtsvane, Tsitska, and Tsolikouri offer distillers advantageous high acidity, a common trait in any good brandy grape. As the wine world warms up to vintages and indigenous varietals from the Caucasus region, esteemed brandy houses like Sarajishvili should become better known.&nbsp;
We then turn to South Africa&rsquo;s domination of Chenin Blanc. Here, too, we find a brandy connection. While Chenin Blanc, locally called Steen, grows well on the windy vineyards of the Cape, it was historically used as an input of the local brandy industry. Along with Colombard, South African winegrowers favored Chenin Blanc as a suitable base for the country&rsquo;s once booming brandy industry. Some of South Africa&rsquo;s signature wines owe their existence to brandy.
Narina Cloete, head winemaker at <a href="https://www.blaauwklippen.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorag4N1j4gOcYfjlH23HESjGKQ7qVxtnEqrpDmiohMyagdRQCwH">Blaauwklippen</a>, explained: &ldquo;Brandy is a big part of the South African wine and spirits history. As Blaauwklippen is the oldest wine farm in Stellenbosch, it is a must for somebody that values great brandy, history, and tradition.&rdquo; She pointed to two varietals, Colombard and Chenin Blanc, as being essential.&ldquo;They are the workhorses of South Africa&rsquo;s white grape varieties and make excellent base wines for our brandies,&rdquo; she said. While the vineyard is known for their red wines, Blaauwklippen also pot distills the iconic white grapes and ages the eau-de-vie for 10 years.&nbsp;
Further off the beaten path is a rising star in the category&mdash;Singani, Bolivia&rsquo;s unique, high-altitude brandy made from Muscat of Alexandria grapes. Unlike the oak-aged expressions of Georgia and South Africa, Bolivians tend to drink their Singani as a clear spirit, often in a chuflay, a highball made with ginger ale and citrus. This common usage bolsters the relevance of brandy as a cocktail spirit.&nbsp;
&ldquo;We are lucky that Singani is as versatile as it is, simply by nature,&rdquo; said <a href="https://singani63.com/">Singani 63</a> CEO Richard Scully, &ldquo;Many bars and restaurants showcase their creativity by pushing Singani to new limits. We see this in the excitement of early adopters&mdash;they share their enthusiasm, encouraging new experimentation, and the creativity continues. Singani&rsquo;s distinctiveness makes it stand out like a new color in a box of crayons, offering an original experience to cocktail culture.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The most distinct part of Singani production? The grapes must grow in vineyards at least 5,250 feet above sea level. The spirit is light, bright, sharp&mdash;just like the dizzying altitudes of the Andes.
In Eastern Europe, the Balkans are also home to a deep distilling tradition. But the most intriguing offerings from this region ultimately push the oenological envelope&mdash;they are made from plums instead of grapes. While you might be hard pressed to find a Serbian wine at your local shop, imported rakija offers a different essence of fruit. Serbian brandies, in particular, treat plums just as winemakers treat grapes. Brands like <a href="https://starasokolova.com/?lang=en">Stara Sokolova</a> distill spirits only from the trnovača variety, while <a href="https://yebiga.com/">Yebiga</a> opts for the čačanska rodna fruit. If you&rsquo;ve memorized all your grape varietals, it might be time to sip some Balkan brandies and brush up on your plums.&nbsp;
<h3 dir="ltr">Brandy for the Whiskey Lovers</h3>
If talk of varietals and terroir is not enticing enough, brandy has the dual-appeal of being an aged spirit. From time-honored cognacs matured in French oak to newer brands relying on used bourbon barrels, brandy is a spirit that can be very appealing to whiskey lovers.&nbsp;
Take, for example, Asbach Uralt, a German brandy that has a variety of aged expressions at different price points. The legacy distillery on the right bank of the Rhine looks to cognac as a model and exclusively uses Limousin oak from south-central France to age its spirits.&nbsp;
In America, Louisville distillery <a href="https://copperandkings.com/">Copper &amp; Kings</a> is vying to reclaim brandy&rsquo;s story as a heritage American spirit by relying on bourbon barrels for maturation. &ldquo;If I told you that for every three bottles of bourbon sold in America, there is one bottle of brandy sold, it would be hard to believe,&rdquo; said Rob Bourdon, owner and CEO of Copper &amp; Kings American Brandy Company.
His distillery buys Muscat, Chenin Blanc, and Colombard grapes from California, but the rest of the process, from fermentation to distillation and aging, is rooted in Kentucky&rsquo;s bourbon tradition. From custom fabricated copper pot stills to aging in ex-bourbon barrels, Copper &amp; Kings keeps pace with their corn-fed counterparts, although there are differences.&ldquo;We have a cellar downstairs and we control our aging environment,&rdquo; said Bourdon. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have that rough and tough aging environment that bourbon goes through; brandy is a softer spirit.&rdquo;&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s not that there is no brandy-making tradition in the U.S.&mdash;on the contrary, Bourdon wants to reclaim that history. &ldquo;We have this rich American heritage with brandy, and if you asked someone on the street, they wouldn&rsquo;t know that,&rdquo; he said. But when we look at the domestic brands that dominate the category, they are selling at lower price points and gathering dust on the bottom shelf. The largest brands, like Gallo&rsquo;s E. &amp; J., Sazerac&rsquo;s Paul Masson, Heaven Hill&rsquo;s Christian Brothers, and Korbel, all hail from the vineyards of California.&nbsp;
It makes sense that America&rsquo;s brandy heartland would be where over 80 percent of its grapes are grown, but these brands aren&rsquo;t necessarily trying to capture the attention of new consumers. Instead, excitement is drawn to brands like Copper &amp; Kings that are adding a new small-batch, craft spirit twist to the category.&nbsp;
In farflung countries, distillers are approaching the brandy category with a newfound vigor (even if they follow a centuries-old tradition.) &ldquo;Drinkers around the world are self educating like never before and seeking fun, new and authentic experiences,&rdquo; said Singani 63&rsquo;s Scully, &ldquo;The category of grape spirits is vast and exciting.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Even as brandy struggles at the macro level, there is a silver lining coming from regions that have not always been part of the discussion. Cognac may feel a bit dated and stuffy to some, but Georgian brandy has the apricot zing of a newfound treasure, South African brandy breathes with the southeasterly winds of the Atlantic, and Kentucky is adding some Southern char and sweetness to California grapes. If you look around, it&rsquo;s easy to see that the current doldrums in the brandy industry could be setting the stage for some exciting new waves to come.&nbsp;

Why Brandy Has Become a Global Spirit That Appeals to Both Wine and Whiskey Drinkers

When Trey Zoeller started working in the liquor business in the 1990s, he was surprised to find that, outside of his home state of Kentucky, nobody wanted bourbon. &ldquo;Everybody drank bourbon here and I never thought about it&mdash;I assumed they drank bourbon everywhere,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Then I moved to a half dozen different places around the country and nobody was drinking it.&rdquo;
Why, then, did he decide to start a bourbon business in 1999, a year when bourbon sales were, to put it bluntly, in the toilet?
For one thing, he could get good bourbon cheaply. There were just eight distilleries operating in Kentucky, replete with well-aged barrels from the so-called glut era of the 1980s, but &ldquo;we could buy from anyone,&rdquo; Zoeller recalled. He also believed that bourbon had the potential to achieve the same high prices that scotch and Irish whiskeys were starting to command.
&ldquo;Ignorance is bliss,&rdquo; he laughed. &ldquo;There wasn't a high-end [bourbon] market or consumer at the time, but I had confidence that what was out there, some of the great old barrels, were superior to things that were being bottled&mdash;and that there's always room at the top. Maybe that was a little bit before our time because we couldn't give it away in the beginning.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Sales were so poor in the early days that Zoeller had to diversify, so he shilled energy drinks, fortified water, and even a Chardonnay called Pinque. Those products outsold Jefferson&rsquo;s for years, helping to sustain Zoeller&rsquo;s faith that, eventually, whiskey drinkers would come around. &ldquo;I should have concentrated more effort on those products than bourbon, because it wasn't paying the bills at the time,&rdquo; he said.
Eventually his passion project paid off. Early bottlings of Jefferson&rsquo;s Presidential Select, originally priced at $100 and containing Stitzel-Weller bourbon, now command thousands of dollars at auction. Though his initial supply of glut-era barrels has long since been exhausted, Zoeller has been shrewd about laying down new make on contract and buying whiskey from different distilleries, all with an eye toward finishing and blending. It&rsquo;s this post-distillation process that defines Jefferson&rsquo;s rather than what happens in the stillhouse.
Over the years, Zoeller hasn&rsquo;t shied away from aggressive barrel finishes, and he&rsquo;s made waves&mdash;literally&mdash;with products like Jefferson&rsquo;s Ocean, a bourbon aged onboard active container ships that some commentators in the past have dismissed as a gimmick. The brand now has a deep bench of everyday whiskeys, as well as a luxury offering in Marian McClain, a five-bourbon blend named for an early American distiller and ancestor of Zoeller. As part of the Castle Brands portfolio, Jefferson&rsquo;s was acquired by Pernod Ricard in 2019. The company is building a distillery in Lebanon, Kentucky that Zoeller says should come on line sometime later this year.&nbsp;
Many in Zoeller&rsquo;s position would have retired at this point, but he&rsquo;s still full of energy and ideas&mdash;and looking at potentially bringing his children, twins who recently turned 21, into the business in the future. Even with bourbon&rsquo;s 21st-century momentum starting to slow, he sees plenty of opportunity ahead. The Unicorn Review sat down with Zoeller to talk about the bourbon community, the roots of his experimental philosophy, and more&mdash;including an as-yet-unreleased collaboration with an A-list rock star.&nbsp;
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Unicorn Review: There are a number of whiskey blenders making a good name for themselves nowadays, but that wasn&rsquo;t the case when you got started. Did you consciously avoid talking about blending?&nbsp;
Trey Zoeller: We didn't beat our chest about it, that's for sure, because you're exactly right: blending was bad. It was a dirty word. People associated it with blended scotch whisky, blended Canadian whiskies. What we were doing was blending Kentucky straight bourbon whiskeys&mdash; great products all the way around&mdash;and just trying to put them together to make them better than they were. We started doing it way before most had even thought about it. If there were other distilleries doing it, they weren't talking about it.&nbsp;
Now people are putting more weight and more credit into blending. I think there's a real art to it. It's the hardest product. We&rsquo;ve done 30 expressions, and we've got four blended products now. Those are the ones that are still the most difficult to put together because there's one way to do it&mdash;that's by taste.&nbsp;
You told me once that distilling is not what&rsquo;s interesting to you. It&rsquo;s maturation and what you can do with the whiskey afterwards. Where does that philosophy come from?
When I started, 99% of bourbon was made in Kentucky. If you look at the history, then you understand why they distill and age the way they do, which is all borne out of practicality. So I looked at it as: if you threw practicality out the door, what could you do to enhance bourbon the most?
So Marian McLain, my eighth-generation grandmother, was arrested for not paying taxes. After the Revolutionary War, George Washington had to pay for the war, so he instituted the whiskey tax. A lot of the distillers [from the East] went over the Appalachian Mountains and started distilling in this region. To get the whiskey back to where there were people, they put it in barrels for the first time. They floated it down the river system and then shipped it around Florida, back up to where there were people.&nbsp;
I recreated that [journey] 10, 12 years ago, and the whiskey that we distilled and sent on that voyage was unbelievable. It was as dark as the 16-year-old bourbon that we double-barreled for five years. Completely complex, so much more rounded than the same whiskey distilled on the same day and aged in Kentucky.&nbsp;
Then the railroad made its way down to Kentucky and you could ship barrels of whiskey up to New York in two weeks. Two-week-old whiskey sucks. So what did they do? They built warehouses right next to the distillery, built them high rather than wide, and aged it year over year over year to catch up to what happened on that voyage.&nbsp;
I looked at it and said, what changed on that voyage? It was environment and agitation. If you change the environment and agitation, you can drastically change the outcome of the whiskey. So I started experimenting in those different routes and that really opened up to what I could do.&nbsp;
Jefferson&rsquo;s Ocean is tremendously impacted by its sea voyage, but I still see people casually dismissing it as a gimmick. They don&rsquo;t understand what&rsquo;s happening to the barrel when it gets loaded onto a ship. What do you say to the haters?
It's really interesting that they dismiss that, but they buy into Warehouse J or Warehouse G [as influencing flavor in specific ways due to their location]. You've been to Kentucky&mdash;no microclimates here. It's either blanketed in heat and humidity or it's cold as shit. So is there really a difference between one warehouse and another? Maybe so&mdash;if so, slightly.&nbsp;
But let's say you take a barrel out of that warehouse and you put it on a ship and it's rocking back and forth and you take it down to the Tasmanian Sea and all the way up to the North Sea and cross the equator. If you can't [believe] that that matures bourbon in a different way than it would from one warehouse to another, then you've lost the ability to rationalize.
Your early Presidential Select bottles were $100 at time of release. Now they&rsquo;re selling for thousands at auction. Did you ever expect that?
We had a hard time selling for a hundred bucks. I would&rsquo;ve held a lot more of it back if I knew that was going to be the case. I was just happy to sell what we had.&nbsp;
Most people would say it was a perfect storm of things coming together that finally made bourbon take off, from the economy to Mad Men to cocktail culture. If you ask me, this [holds up phone] is what it was.&nbsp;
Once people could geek out together and to form a community together, that's when bourbon really started to take off. But at the time, the collectability of bourbon wasn't a thing. Nobody anticipated any of that&mdash;I certainly didn't. It's the community of bourbon that has made it proliferate so much, which is such a great, cool thing about it.
Have you ever seen people trying to sell fake Jefferson&rsquo;s, refilled bottles or something like that?
I've seen empty bottles for sale on the internet, so I can only assume.&nbsp;
When I first got into the industry, and I'm talking 1997, I remember being with a distributor in Nashville and seeing people recork wine bottles. It totally blew my mind. I couldn't believe that was going on, and it was going on in the open in front of a number of people. I'd be naive to think it doesn't happen.&nbsp;
I've seen bottles that we've only sold overseas end up in the U.S. I assume that's how they got there, but I'm not positive. So I think unfortunately it happens, but I guess that's just a sign of the success of the category or the brand. When we started doing some releases and seeing how many people were lined up there knowing that 50% of them were buying it only to flip it&mdash;you hate to see that, but it's indicative of the success of the category.&nbsp;
You&rsquo;ve been at this for almost 30 years. In the next 30 years, do you think bourbon can establish itself internationally as a whiskey that&rsquo;s as well known and respected as scotch?
Absolutely. When I first went to the first WhiskyFest in New York [in the late 1990s], us bourbon companies were pushed in the corner. We were the redheaded stepchild. Nobody was there to talk bourbon. It was all about scotch.&nbsp;
It's an education process. I don't think that we have properly pushed bourbon out into the world with as much emphasis as we should. In my mind, it's all about prestige and status that bourbon has not done a good enough job establishing. So I think absolutely it can be and will be more and more accepted. If you go to South America and Asia, scotch is king just as it was here in the &lsquo;90s. There will be a time and a place that shift happens, and it will happen rapidly like it did here. When that happens, I don't know.&nbsp;
Do you ever lose track of your experiments?
We&rsquo;re much better at [keeping track] now that we&rsquo;re part of Pernod Ricard. That said, I've got a number of experiments that I would love to bring to market. It's just how you can only bring so much to market at a time. We've got some unbelievable products that we've done in very small amounts that I would now like to do in commercial bottlings. That&rsquo;s one of the fights that I have with the bigger company all the time. I want to put these out and they're like, hold on, let's have a more planned out release for them and space it out a little bit more.
In 2019, you told me you were shipping bourbon over to <a href="https://tenutailpalagio.com/">Il Palagio</a>, Sting&rsquo;s wine estate in Tuscany. What happened with that?
It wasn&rsquo;t enough for a commercial release. That&rsquo;s one of those products I&rsquo;d love to come out with. It&rsquo;s got all the right components: different climate, a building to age it, which is perfect. We do have one obstacle to overcome, which was the legality of what we were doing. How to get it there. I&rsquo;ve got to figure that out.&nbsp;

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