This year for the holidays I’m going to try a brand new whiskey every day in December. #lifegoals Dec. 12 Just realized I could be doing age statement numerology this whole time and am having massive regrets for skipping 1-11. This one just happened to line up nicely! This distillery has a lot of buzz out there, both good and bad. I’ve done a lot of research on this brand, and I want to present that information quickly. To the best of my knowledge: 1. Owner Marci Palatella appears to be the only owner ever, despite rumors that this brand appeared to be resurrected and rebranded in 2000 overseas. 2. “Olde St Nick was originally created in the 1980s using fabulous old barrels she (owner) sourced from Julian Van Winkle, Even Kulsveen, and others.” 3. This brand is currently only available in KY and IN. 4. In the past, the Olde St. Nick labels have been flagged by whiskey enthusiasts to be in violation of 27 CFR 5.40 (a) - non straight whiskies without an age statement. 5. In the past, the Olde St. Nick labels have been flagged by whiskey enthusiasts to be in violation of 27 CFR 5.36 (d) - failure to list state of distillation (potentially not a problem if this was distilled in CA, only state mentioned on labels in question). 6. There are rumors Marci has been involved in college admission scandals. Why is all this relevant? Marci claims that Diageo sold Olde St Nick some barrels that Diageo perceived to be aged too long to still have value. (Over 12 years.) I’ll pause for a moment for you to laugh at that. No, go ahead. I’ll wait. These barrels were allegedly made by Julian Van Winkle at Stitzel. And extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - evidence many enthusiasts feel is lacking. The 17-year bottle itself makes no direct claims. It says vague things like, “made from the rarest bourbon in existence,” or something like that. This general vagueness on labels and character assassination attempts on Marci make the truth a bit hazy. The 12 year I’m trying today makes no claim of being SW juice, but the current release 17 year does. Allegedly put in a vat decades ago to get it out of the barrel, bottled now as an irreplaceable time piece in bourbon history. At just under $600 retail for a 375mL, what information would you require to potentially get your hands on Stitzel-Weller juice crafted by Julian Van Winkle? The research I just showed you was enough for me to pull the trigger. This bottle in front of me does not violate any of the aforementioned rules. It’s a 12 year product of Kentucky, produced and bottled in Bardstown. There are noses that let you know you’re in for a treat. It ticks all the boxes. Caramel, apples, honey, lemon. Fantastic. Body hits honey first. Yes to caramel, yes to apple. The lemon is there as a more general citrus. I could be convinced of orange. Very delicious. Finish is mild and low on heat/spice. It’s oily, but not overly. A bit of the tart flavors carry on, but it fades quickly. Very slight front-tongue buzz. So without taking a side in Reddit v. Marci, this drink is objectively delicious. It enters the ranks as one of my favorite bourbons of all time, and I see this having the potential of catching on and becoming impossible to find, much like EHT or RHF, and for many of the same reasons. If this truly is stuff they’re distilling right now in Bardstown, then I’m very excited about the future of this distillery. ‘Tis the season. I don’t know if I actually have 19 more new whiskeys lined up, so if you’re reading this and there’s something readily available out there you’d like me to enjoy/suffer through this holiday season, leave it in the comments. EDIT: I opened this bottle at a time in my life when I preferred drinking meat from a rocks glass. I finished at a time when I preferred neat in a glencairn. So just one month later, I was drinking my last few sips, and I did not like it. So much so, that I thought I must’ve gotten this one wrong. Then I had an instinct that it could be an oxidation thing, and I poured it into a rocks glass and let it sit for a few minutes. There was the whiskey I loved. I’ve never payed that much attention to this type of thing before, but holy hell: letting this one open up in a wide-rim glass really does bring out the best, and if you stick to glencairn or the like, you will be disappointed here.