Whiskey Advent Calendar Tasting: Michter's US*1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon

This is part of my series on tasting notes from the 2021 Drinks By The Dram Bourbon Advent Calendar.

Whiskey for December 7th, 2021: Michter's US*1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon

The distillery

Straight from Michter's web page:

Originally known as Shenk's and later as Bomberger's, the whiskey company which ultimately became known as Michter's was founded by John Shenk, a Swiss Mennonite farmer, in Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania in 1753. In its earliest days, Shenk's produced whiskey from rye grain, a favorite local crop in the Pennsylvania Blue Mountain Valley where the distillery was located.

There's some interesting reading about the original Bomberger distillery over at Wikipedia. Michter's these days is distilled in the Michter's Distillery in Louisville, KY by Master Distiller Dan McKee. Michter's is owned by Chatham Imports these days, which appears to be a smallish spirits importer. They own Michter's and a few other not-very-well-known spirit brands.

The whiskey

Tonight's whiskey is the US*1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon from Michter's.

The US*1 collection is commemerative of Micther's being the first distillery in the US, according to Michter's web site. This bourbon is made as part of a small batch of 20 barrels at a time.

Michter's doesn't provide any information about the mash bill, but helpfully tells us it's aged in new, charred, white oak barrels, which is mandated by law to be called a bourbon. It also has some tasting notes:

Rich caramel with balanced vanilla, stone fruit notes, smoky depth, with an oak finish

Sounds good, let's dive in.

Look

This bourbon is extremely ruddy, almost coppery, in appearance. It's bright and clear with rose gold highlights in in the light. It swirls well and creates thick sheets of glycerine that take ages to form any kind of legs, which are hesitant to run at all.

Nose

The nose starts with cinnamon, caramel, and dark fruits and finishes with a hint of grassy rye. There's a pleasent level of alcohol and the whole thing leans to the sweet side.

Taste

The taste starts with sweet vanilla that takes it's time to wander into peppery rye that then blooms into brown sugar, caramel, and black pepper that blossom with the heat of the alcohol. It finishes rather dry with leather and oak. The finish lingers with rye and hints of mint. It's quite the wild ride.

After water

After adding a little water, there's no real change to the nose. There might be a little citrus there now where there wasn't before, possibly hiding behind the bolder smells which are just turned down a notch now.

The taste changes quite dramatically with loads of caramel and butterscotch running through the whole thing. It no longer finishes dry, but you still get some leather and oak, but not even close to as much. The pepper moves to the finish and moves the mint to well after you think the taste should be done. Quite the remarkable change. Lovely and sweet throughout, but not too much.

Summary

It's Michter's. Everyone loves Michter's, with good reason. It's a complex and interesting whiskey with a good collection of your standard bourbon flavors. I like that it's not too fruity and manages to lean into a complex sweetness that isn't overly sweet or one dimensional. I'm not sure I'd use this in a cocktail, you'd lose all the interesting elements to it and I don't think it's powerful enough to stand up to too many ingredients. I'd serve this neat when I was willing and interested in thinking about what I'm drinking.