Very Olde St. Nick Immaculata

Lot 6

Proof: 118.2 proof

Age: 9. 10 and 19 Years Old

Tasting Notes: The nose is pocketed with mixed sugars all the way: brown sugar crumbled pie crust, white sugar simple syrup, and even a little flat cream soda concentrate. There’s very little fruitiness, but that makes for a very clean sweetness that harmonizes well with these really pleasing sweet oak notes.

The palate is sweet and candied, juicy and refreshing, creamy and rounded all at the same time. There’s a playful pop of apricot and mixed berry that leads bright and candied before more saturated notes of melon and crisp apple emerge, then transition into this rum-like richness of sugar and sweet, mature oak.

The finish is long and viscous, staying syrupy and almost cola-like if it weren’t so smooth. There’s complementary spice to keep it from getting cloying, with a lovely buttery, spiced oak note continuing on.

About: Very Old St. Nick has always been about old whiskey, interesting barrels and blends that don’t necessarily follow the traditional Kentucky script. This Ancient Cask Immaculata might be one of the more interesting examples yet. It’s a three-barrel blend built from three very different Kentucky bourbons: an almost 9-year-old wheated bourbon pot distilled at Preservation Distillery, a 10-year-old high-rye bourbon, and a 19-year-old Kentucky bourbon. On paper, that’s a pretty wild combination. You have the softer sweetness of a wheated bourbon, the spice and structure of a high-rye mash bill, and nearly two decades of oak and maturity coming from the oldest barrel. More importantly, this isn’t simply a blend built around an impressive age statement. Each barrel is here to do something different.

That shows up immediately in the glass. The wheated bourbon brings caramel, brown sugar and a softer confectionary sweetness, while the high-rye component adds spice and keeps the blend from becoming too oak-driven. Then there’s the 19-year bourbon. That’s where the darker side starts to come through—old leather, seasoned oak, baking spice and some of those wonderfully dusty notes you only seem to find in well-aged Kentucky whiskey. The result is layered without becoming overly complicated and mature without drinking like an oak bomb. Three barrels. Three completely different profiles. One of them nearly two decades old. This is exactly the kind of blending that makes Very Old St. Nick so much fun to drink.