| When it comes to cocktails I have very fickle tastes. I always love trying new concoctions, however there are a few classics which I come back to time and time again. Out of my top six “go to cocktails” half of them use Bourbon as a base: Mint Julep, Manhattan and Old Fashioned. Whilst there is a large range of mixing Bourbons which are great to use in cocktails, Noah’s Mill is firmly in the sipping category (unless of course you are feeling particularly flush). Noah’s Mill is a brand rather than a distillery and is made by the Kentucky Bourbon Distillers. They have a reputation for producing high quality small batch whiskies which include: Johnny Drum, Old Bardstown, Willett Family Estate, Noah’s Mill and Rowan’s Creek.
The Kentucky Bourbon Distillers started life as the Willett Distilling Company back in 1935 when Thompson Willett founded a distillery on his father’s farm. The Willett family history is steeped in whiskey, with members being involved in making the spirit from the 1870s, and I’m sure if it weren’t for prohibition (which only ended in 1933) the Willett Distillery would have been established much earlier. The first 30 barrels were made in March 1936 and transferred to age in purpose-built warehouses located on some of the highest land in the county. The location of the warehouses was no coincidence as they were designed to allow cool breezes through the warehouses. This is in order to help keep the maturation of the whiskey slow and even.
In the late 70s and early 80s the Willett Distilling Company suffered several setbacks and in 1984 it was purchased by Even Kulsveen: Thompson Willett’s son in law, who renamed it the Kentucky Bourbon Distillers. The company has gone from strength to strength since and is now run by Even, his wife Martha (Thompson’s daughter) and their two children Drew and Britt.
Noah’s Mill whiskey is made up from small batches that consist of no more than 12 barrels. Each batch is hand-bottled at 57.15% (114.3 proof) from whiskey that has been aged between 5 to 15 years in new oak barrels. The batch number of my bottle is QBC No 11-75, which with a little bit of research and logic would suggest to me to that it came from the 75th batch made in 2011. However, this is my own extrapolation and may not be correct. |
