Willett Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Willet Kentucky Bourbon is a hand-selected, limited edition spirit. Aged for between eight and ten years, Willett Pot Still Reserve is bottled in a decorative decanter that earned the Double Gold Medal for packaging design and Gold Medal for taste at the 2008 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Willett’s Pot Still Reserve Bourbon is now made 100% in-house at the Willett Distillery from a wheated recipe that mimics the sweetly-spiced and creamy nature of other genre favorites like Pappy Van Winkle and Weller 12 year. At roughly five years of age, it’s one of the few instances where the quality of the whiskey itself matches the beauty of the bottle.

Using a mashbill of 65% corn, 20% wheat, and 15% malted barley, Willett’s wheated recipe substitutes out the spiciness of the rye in favor of creamy wheat. Instead of peppery herbaceous notes, you get cinnamon red hots and lots of vanilla.

Its unique shape and design are meant to resemble the pot still that was used for generations at the Willett Distilling Company. The company is identified on the product label as the Willett Distilling Company, which was the original name of the company until its name was changed in 1984 to Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, Ltd. (KBD).

Tasting Notes:

On the nose, Pot Still Reserve shows a soft, elegant and uniquely fruity and floral bouquet: lemon frosting, ripe cherry, mandarin orange and honey. Underneath all that fruit are layers of vanilla extract, coconut, cinnamon and a touch of prickly spice.