Jeptha Creed is releasing their first straight bourbon tomorrow, a four-grain recipe featuring their home-grown “Bloody Butcher” corn.
Mother and daughter distilling duo Joyce and Autumn Nethery discovered the sweet heirloom Bloody Butcher corn varietal six years ago, noting that wildlife who came to feast on their crops often skipped over the traditional yellow corn to snack on the red-kerneled Bloody Butcher ears. The family, which includes father Bruce Nethery and son Hunter, plants, harvests, and distills the grains themselves, and finished construction on their distillery in 2016.
This will be the distillery’s first release of straight (at least two-year-old) bourbon. With a mash bill of 70% Bloody Butcher Corn, 15% malted rye, 10% malted wheat, 5% malted barley, Jeptha Creed Straight 4-Grain Bourbon is bottled at 98 proof.
The vast majority of whiskeys on the market (with a few exceptions) use just one flavoring grain, rye or wheat, in their recipes. The 4-Grain recipe happened by accident in 2014, when three mistakenly malted grains arrived at a distillery the Netherys were using for test batching. Luckily, when they tasted the 4-Grain distillate, they knew they’d found something special.
The distillery’s tasting notes include a nose of “sweet cream candies, hydrangeas, morning glories, geranium, dried apricots and red berries, peach cobbler, brown sugar and blackberry jam,” a palate that is “complex and rich with vanilla, nutmeg, clove and toasted pecans,” and a “long finish of vanilla mint with a lingering hint of baking spices.”
The release party for Jeptha Creed Straight 4-Grain Bourbon will take place at 5PM on May 10th, 2019, at the Jeptha Creed Distillery in Shelbyville, Kentucky. Master Distiller Joyce Nethery will be signing bottles beginning at 6, and live music will begin at 7.
As if the release party alone isn’t enough reason to visit, the distillery recently won “Best Tour & Tasting Room” of 2019 from the American Distillers Institute. And set in the town of Shelbyville, you’ll find plenty to do after you’ve snagged your bottle. Link here to read their story.
