Starlight 10-Year & Mizunara Bourbons Return

During my eight years at Seelbach's, I’ve been to several distilleries that opened my eyes and gave me a glimpse of where the craft whiskey movement was going. My first visit to Starlight in February 2021 definitely sticks out.

I had seen some buzz about Starlight in the bourbon forums, but nothing prepared me for the size and scope of the operation I found that day. Usually, you'd visit a distillery and be lucky to try a few samples across a couple of different types of whiskey. Starlight was way beyond that.

I met a multigenerational family that had been distilling since 2001. They were not just distilling, they were farming and making wine. They were also using finishing barrels the whiskey industry had barely seen before.

This was the first place I tried a blueberry brandy finish. It included Amburana, VDN, Tokaji, and French Oak, with some of those French Oak staves coming from specific regions. The list goes on and on.

That’s what makes Starlight Distillery special. It’s decades of education, experience, and hands-on work that have continued to improve their product. The Huber boys now take a hands-on approach at the distillery, and you can’t replicate that. I definitely wasn’t working around an active fruit farm, winery, and distillery during my high school years, stories often told by both Blake and Christian Huber.

It’s only right that Starlight reaches this elite level of craft distillers with a double-digit bourbon. And with that, we couldn’t be more excited for the 2026 release of their 10-Year Bourbon.

Starlight Distillery's 2026 10-Year Bourbon represents the rare culmination of time, craftsmanship, and family tradition. This ten-barrel blend was carefully selected from some of the oldest bourbon resting in their rickhouses, featuring both signature 3-grain and 4-grain mash bills built on rare heirloom corn and Indiana rye, aged in a combination of Canton, ISC, and Kelvin barrels.

Sweet mash fermented and double pot distilled on Vendome copper stills, each barrel was entered at low proof and aged slowly for a full decade to develop exceptional depth and character.

Over the course of the past year, Ted Huber, Blake Huber, and Christian Huber personally selected and evaluated each cask for this second-annual release, ultimately spending more than six months meticulously blending the final expression. Every barrel was chosen at its precise moment of maturity, revealing a bourbon of exceptional depth, structure, and elegance.

Bottled at a cask strength of 114.2 proof, Batch #2 delivers remarkable richness and complexity while preserving the character and integrity developed through ten full years of aging. Layers of dark caramel, seasoned oak, baking spice, and dried fruit unfold with extraordinary balance and length, a reflection of both the spirit and the hands that guided it.

This is more than a bourbon. It is a tribute to over 180 years of family legacy, agriculture, and American craftsmanship. A once-a-year release created not simply to be enjoyed, but to be remembered. An invitation to slow down, celebrate the journey, and savor the decade it took to create. 

The nose is deeply layered with dark caramel, thick honey, toasted vanilla, charred oak, cane sugar syrup, and ripe orchard fruit, all balanced by layered baking spice and a whiff of smoke.

The palate coats immediately, heavily, slowly, and effortlessly. Rich toffee, baked apples, layers of peaches, plums, and Luxardo cherries, rich honey, and gorgeous seasoned oak continue with layers of depth to sift through. The longer you sip, the more the cherry blankets the palate mixing with that sweet oak.

The finish is long and elegant, complex and structured with deep fruits, coating oak spice, root beer float, brûléed sugar, and a heavy, continually developing dimension the longer it sits on the palate.

We are also back with a restock of their widely popular Mizunara release, which took Best Overall Bourbon at the 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition and was one of our best-selling products of 2025.

This is an 8-barrel blend of Starlight’s 8-year signature 3-grain and 4-grain bourbon mash bills, first aged in fire-charred new American white oak barrels, then secondarily finished in Japanese Mizunara oak sourced from 200-to-500-year-old trees grown on the northernmost island of Japan.

If you've ever wanted a perfect stepping stone into Starlight finishing, this would be it.

Grab Starlight 10-Year Bourbon and Starlight Mizunara now.

A magnificent work of balance in a bottle. The nose is rich and aromatic, leading with vanilla cream, soft honey, soft leather, and light flickers of pepper before settling into balanced, sweet oak.

The palate is a beautiful dance of cherry and peach cobbler, French vanilla coffee creamer, blanketing brown sugar, and sweet oak. The flavors are silky, layered, and nuanced, but still filled with candied fruit and sugars, elegant confectionery layers, and gentle peppery spice.

The finish is a carbon copy of the palate as it trails with a mix of vanilla sweet cream, coconut sugar, softer baking spices, and beautifully layered oak.