The Kentucky Owl Distillery was founded in 1879 by C.M. Dedman, the current version of the distillery was relaunched in 2014 after its initial shuttering by Dedman’s great, great grandson (though it’s now currently overseen by Stoli Group).
Kentucky Owl’s initial releases were a series of “old batches” that saw distribution limited to a few hundred or thousand bottles — and saw prices for each fetch up to several hundred or even thousands of dollars.
Why so much, besides the limited production and long ages in the first blends? Call it expertise. While the brand uses sourced product (a distillery is on the way, see below), the blending is overseen by John Rhea, a longtime Chief Operating Officer at Four Roses. For those who don’t want to hunt down those extremely rare bottles, Kentucky Owl has introduced some more modestly-priced expressions into the market, including The Wiseman and Confiscated.
After releasing a collaboration with Irish Whiskey Bonder Louise McGuane last year called the St. Patrick’s Edition, Kentucky Owl decided to make the team-ups an annual release. For its second limited-edition bourbon, they worked with Nagahama, the smallest distillery in Japan, headed up by Master Blender Yahisa Yusuke.
Takumi Edition started with Rhea selecting four different formulations —4-, 5-, 6- and 13-year-old Kentucky straight bourbons with mashbills containing corn, rye or wheat, and malted barley, and sending those samples to Japan. Yusuke then evaluated those samples and created different blends. “I initially approached this to smell and taste like a Japanese whiskey,” he says. “I didn’t use mizunara oak, an oak cask used in Japan, but I did want the result to have that kind of oak taste and evoke those flavors.”
There is a lot of fruit and citrus in this 100-proof release. I picked up cherry, apple and pear during my tasting, both on the nose and palate. While sweet up front, this bourbon has a balanced and rich mouthfeel and just enough of a spicy kick from the rye to leave an impression, but not overpower the exceptional balance at work here. It’s a fall release, but I’d love to sip this one in the warmer summer weather.
Fun fact: An impressive 420-acre distillery is in the works. And Kentucky Owl Park sounds rather impressive. It’ll feature three pyramid-shaped buildings and the land’s quarry pits will be converted into lakes with limestone-filtered water.
Kentucky Owl Takumi Edition Tasting Notes:
Age: NAS
Proof: 100
Color: Dark golden amber
Nose: Light rye initially with wisps of caramel apple.
Palate: Carmel apple with a dusting of cinnamon sprinkled on it.
Finish: Kind of a funky lingering flavor of all of the above.
