Pinhook Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 2026 750ml

Most American whiskey is blended to taste the same year after year; Pinhook blends each year's mature barrels into a single annual vintage and lets the differences show. Co-founder and master blender Sean Josephs, a certified sommelier who opened the New York whiskey bars Char No. 4 and Maysville, directs the distilling of Pinhook's own mash bill at Castle & Key in Frankfort, Kentucky, the restored Old Taylor Distillery. That mash of 75 percent corn, 15 percent rye, and 10 percent malted barley, all non-GMO, runs through a Vendome copper column still and doubler before aging in char #4 new American oak. The 2026 blend is now a full four years old, proofed to 100 with limestone-filtered spring water and bottled without chill filtration. Red apple skin, butterscotch, and cinnamon lead the nose over a savory, leathery edge; the palate turns to baked apple and candied almond, with a trace of rosewater and white pepper on the finish. Complex enough to sip neat, and priced to pour freely into Manhattans.