I’ve read and been told many times that bourbon fails to improve once you’re past (depending upon who is doing the telling) 12 or 15 or 20 years in the barrel. Unlike scotch, bourbon is aged in new American oak. Too much time in virgin oak, the theory goes, and the wood will overwhelm the grains and leave you with a whiskey past its prime. That may well be true in many, or even most, cases. It’s also true that scarcity alone can be responsible for the exorbitant price tags given to older, age-statement whiskies like this one. Michter’s released a total of 348 bottles of this year’s 25-year-old bourbon (the one I tasted was bottle no. 144), which means there is a lot of competition for a small amount of whiskey. Without denying those things in the aggregate, I’m here to tell you this particular release is a whiskey lover’s dream dram. Apparently in the right hands, with the right juice aging in the right barrels under the right conditions, a bourbon can continue to improve for two and a half decades. Bottom line: It’s hard for me to imagine a bourbon more complex, more interesting or more satisfying.
Editor’s Note: This whiskey was either bought as a sample by The Whiskey Wash or provided to us as a review sample by the party behind it. Per our editorial policies, this in no way influenced the outcome of this review.
Scott Bernard Nelson is a writer, actor, and whiskey reviewer based in Portland, Oregon. While currently working in higher education, he previously dedicated 22 years to journalism, covering impactful events such as 9/11 in Manhattan, crossing into Iraq with U.S. Marines, and contributing to The Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of abuse in the Catholic Church, which inspired the film "Spotlight." Since 2019, Scott has shared his insights as a whiskey reviewer for The Whiskey Wash.
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