Bourbon Whiskey·More from Very Old Saint Nick

Very Olde St. Nick Pirate Booty Rye

Preservation Distillery doesn’t miss, and all of its six releases for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival prove it, but one interesting expression stands out: Pirate Booty Rye. Per Kyle Lloyd, Preservation Distillery’s master of maturation, Pirate Booty is built from some of the oldest rye barrels made at owner Marci Palatella’s farm. “When Preservation started pot distilling rye, we laid a very small number of casks down across a spread of toast and char profiles to see what each one would do,” says Lloyd. “Pirate Booty combines a few of those barrel profiles in a way we haven't put into a Preservation-distilled rye before.” The result is a semi-traditional rye profile—you’ll pick out herbaceous dill notes amid the rye bread nose—with a little more sweetness on the palate, perfectly balancing out the spice.