By Richard Thomas
Rating: A-
(Credit: Richard Thomas)
Although I did not become acquainted with the Michter’s Legacy Series when it was first conceived in 2018, I have been paying attention these last few years, even if I have not always written up the results of that attention. Michter’s has never officially said as much, but the consistent pattern for the series–Shenk’s Homestead Sour Mash and Bomberger’s Declaration–has been to take the stock behind two of Michter’s core expressions and take them in a higher direction with some very involved tweaks.
In this instance, the whiskey used for Shenk’s Homestead is hinted at right there in the name: sour mash whiskey. Michter’s has what is technically an American whiskey named Sour Mash. The successor to a popular brand produced by the old Michter’s company operating out of Pennsylvania’s Bomberger Distillery, it’s not quite a bourbon or a rye because both grains fall below the necessary proportions in the mash bill. Oddballs like that are often called “American whiskey” by the authorities.
For 2025, Michter’s Master of Maturation Andrea Mitchell used some very particular French oak casks for a round of secondary maturation. The wood came from the Vosges region, but more importantly the staves were air dried for two years. Air drying allows the harsher tannins to leech out of the oak, leaving more room for the wood’s other develop once the whiskey is in the barrel. The typical bourbon barrel also uses air dried staves, but those are dried for just six months. Mitchell went for four times as long. Moreover, French oak has a tighter grain structure, which restricts absorption of the whiskey into the wood, and has a spicier, earthier character relative to white oak’s sweet vanilla profile. Those stoves were toasted, not charred, which retains the more delicate and volatile flavor elements (such as coconut) that cook out of the wood in an intense charring, such as the Level III and IV chars commonly used in the bourbon industry.
Shenk’s Homestead, named for the mid-18th century antecedent to the old Michter’s company, is bottled at 91.2 proof.
The Whiskey
I actually spent a quarter hour nosing Shenk’s 2025, because I decided at the outset that “silky” and “velvety” were the wrong words, and I used the word “satin” so infrequently that it took me that long to think of
the synonym. So, the nose has a texture like satin, smoothly delivering an understated current of toasty oak and baking spice coupled in a well-balanced manner to an earthy caramel candy.
Where the nose is sating, the palate is cream. In fact, I would call it buttery if even a little bit of oil were in the liquid. Clove, cinnamon and dry, toasty wood meet dried apricot, cherry and fig newton filling, all of it wrapped up in toffee. With notes like that, the finish opens like a pretty earthy, chocolatey fruitcake, before fading off to the moderate, but quite dry spicy wood note that lingers on for a spell.
I liked this installment of Shenk’s so much I’m thinking of putting it out as the Holidays dessert bottle (for Thanksgiving and Christmas leftovers) this year.
The Price
A bottle of Shenk’s 2025 should run you $110, and a survey of online retailers suggest you should be able to find it for right around that price point. Even the marked-up bottles are stopping at around $150.
