Butterscotch | Crème brûlée | Vanilla cream | Faint oak | White peppercorn

Warm butterscotch | Baking spices | Prickly heat | Sweet syrup | Vanilla | Ramp up in intensity

Rush of spice | Light oak | Faint vanilla | Building prickly heat

John Graves Mattingly, who’s Registered Distillery #2, was the first in Marion County, Kentucky in 1845. Jeff Mattingly, a sixth generation descendant of John Mattingly revitalized his family history as it relates to whiskey in 2009. Located in Frankfort, Kentucky, the distillery is known for its “Blend Your Own Bourbon Experience” which allows consumers to blend and bottle their own personalized whiskey on site. According to the company, “all of J. Mattingly 1845's whiskeys undergo its proprietary double-staving process, allowing the whiskey inside additional surface exposure to charred barrel staves to impart more flavor and color than its competitors' offerings.” To celebrate the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby, the company released three limited small batch whiskeys, which all have undergone the same double-stave process.

The nose of this corn-based light whiskey opens with dessert-like qualities as butterscotch and crème brûlée readily waft out of the glass. The opening to the sip is deceiving as it doesn’t reveal the proof nor the rush that’s about to come shortly after. The midpoint, however, takes no prisoners as a drastic ramp up in intensity happens and there is no denying the whiskey’s proof at this point. Warm butterscotch and sweet syrup continue the dessert-like theme before moving onto the finish, which is a slap to the face of bold spice. Light oak and faint vanilla try to fight through, but a building prickly heat quickly takes over. While this is a nice light whiskey overall, it should be called out that it is priced on the higher side than what it should be. That said, fans of light whiskey will find this bottle to be an enjoyable sip.

The bottle in review is 127 out of 500.