Charred oak | Red berries | Crème brûlée | Faint vanilla | Moist chocolate cake

Vanilla frosting | Rye spice | Baking spices | Pink peppercorn | Oak | Carmel pudding

Leather | Oak | Rye spice | Tobacco leaf | Dash of vanilla powder | Lingering spice

Limestone Branch Distillery has been distilling since 2011, and released their first annual limited edition in 2015. To celebrate this decade milestone, Founder and Master Distiller Stephen Beam teamed up with the blending team at Ross & Squibb Distillery. The combined team selected and blended barrels from three distinct mashbills from their Indiana and Kentucky distilleries.

Milestone anniversaries are marked by all types. Some go all out, while others focus more on the basics of what got them to that point. In the case of Yellowstone Limited Edition 2025, it’s more the latter, as its sip focuses more on core bourbon attributes with a twist. It opens with a light aroma that pulls in oak and supporting sweet scents, although you have to really concentrate to pull them out. The midpoint continues a light sweetness train and also pulls in additional spice notes to offer balance. These spice notes carry through to the finish and are joined with earthy notes of leather, oak, and tobacco leaf, before riding out on a wave of lingering spice. For those looking for a more traditional flavor profile with a twist, they’ll be right at home. Overall, though, this is a more straightforward and run-of-the-mill sip than I was expecting for their milestone anniversary release.

The bourbon in review is bottle number 3,605 of 30,000.