Holladay Distillery

February 28, 2024 | by Maranda Sutton

A new age statement on one our favorite bottles?! Since adding Ben Holladay and Holladay Soft Red Wheat to the site last year they've been met with great response. Both Missouri bourbon, both aged stated 6 years, Bottled-in-Bond, and both absolutely delicious. We added their Rickhouse proof releases later in the year and, like the Bottled-in-Bond releases, have both been met with great response. Today we have something a little different. While their Bottled-in-Bond releases are always at least 6 years old, this one-off bottling of Ben Holladay Bottled-in-Bond happens to include all barrels over 7 years old. Kyle Merklein, Holladay Master Distiller, had this to say about the batch:

Often, I get the question why more places don’t do bottled-in-bond, even if they qualify by production standards. The short answer is that it is very difficult to do logistically, and our November bottling is a prime example of that.

Ben Holladay Bourbon has a 6 year age statement, and that is still our goal for that product moving forward. However, when we started in 2016, we distilled extra of our original mashbill while working on details of the Soft Red Wheat production. Fast forward to releasing in 2023, and we were faced with a choice on our Ben Holladay Bourbon. We could dump the barrels and store in a steel tank to end the aging, or we could allow it to turn 7 and release a fun end of year easter egg for the bourbon community. We like to do things differently, so naturally, we chose the later option. This resulted in an extremely flavorful bourbon, and we loved sitting around our distillery sharing this pour with friends over the winter holidays (a lot of these friends said it was our best ever Ben Holladay release).

None of the story above sounds difficult, and most people would love to have the “challenges” that I faced with this batch. This time, the burden fell on our sales team. Just changing from a 6 to 7 year age statement in one batch caused a lot of issues with orders, distribution, registration of items, and all other things that I don’t even pretend to know about. Personally, I feel they learned a lot of new skills in case we ever do something crazy like this again.

Moving forward, however, we will go back to a 6 year age statement so for now enjoy this 7 year one-off bottling.

Image of Ben Holladay Bottled In Bond 7-Year Old Straight Bourbon

The Holladay Distillery was founded in 1856, making it both the oldest distillery in the state of Missouri and the oldest distillery west of the Mississippi still operating on its original site. The property sits on active limestone springs that were first charted by Lewis and Clark in 1804, more than fifty years before Ben Holladay purchased the land that would later become his legacy.

Ben Holladay Bourbon is classified as a Real Missouri Bourbon under a 2019 law requiring that any whiskey labeled as Missouri bourbon must not only meet the federal standards for bourbon, but also be mashed, fermented, distilled, aged, and bottled in the state; aged in oak barrels manufactured in the state; and—beginning January 1, 2020—made with corn exclusively grown in the state.

Holladay Distillery

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“Civilization begins with distillation.”

- WILLIAM FAULKNER