Milam and Greene Just Released Its Oldest Bourbon Yet, and We Tasted It

(Photo: Milam and Greene)

On Monday, Blanco, Texas distillery Milam and Greene announced the release of the third and final release in The Castle Hill Vintage Series.

Milam and Greene The Castle Hill Batch Three 15-Year-Old Bourbon is a blend of 20 bourbons distilled in Tennessee each aged at least 15 years. The age statement on the whiskey — 15 years, six months and 10 days — is the oldest in Milam and Greene’s history.

“Creating our oldest, rarest, and final batch for the Castle Hill Vintage Series has been a passion project for me,” Milam and Greene Master Blender, CEO and co-founder Heather Greene said in a news release. “I select whiskeys at a young age and nurture them for many years before deciding when to use them.”

Greene opted to leave this whiskey in Tennessee for the majority of its maturation, and it spent only its final five month in Texas, where it rested horizontally on the north side of the Milam and Greene Rickhouse 2 in Blanco.

The casks composing the blend are the last remaining of a lot Greene says she selected long ago — “way before I even announced my beginning at Milam and Greene,” she said during a virtual tasting Monday night. Milam and Greene was founded in 2017.

Despite having picked the barrels some time ago, Greene opted to leave them in Tennessee to age; you won’t see 15-year-old Texas whiskeys due to the climate.

“We kept these barrels in a warehouse in Tennessee to mitigate the evaporation before bringing them into the hot Texas summer heat,” Greene said. “Once we brought them down to Texas, they spent just a few months in our warehouse before deciding they had to be vatted and then released. They wouldn’t have survived one more year here.”

The Castle Hill Batch Three 15-Year-Old Bourbon has a mashbill of 84% corn, 8% rye and 8% malted barley. It was bottled at a cask-strength 114.5 proof and is a member of Milam and Greene’s Blender’s Reserve Collection, joining Very Small Batch Bourbon Finished in French Oak Staves and Unabridged Bourbon Volumes 1 and 2.

Milam and Greene Castle Hill Batch Three 15-Year-Old Bourbon has a suggested retail price of $199.99 and can be found from select retailers, at the distillery tasting room in Blanco and from the Milam and Greene website, where it will go on sale at 2 p.m. Wednesday.

The Castle Hill Vintage Series is named for the historic Texas Military Institute, aka “The Castle,” in Austin, Texas, home to Greene’s blending lab. Milam and Greene says the series is composed of “only the finest and rarest barrels” from Greene’s reserve.

Tasting Milam and Greene Castle Hill Batch Three 15-Year-Old Bourbon

We tasted the Milam and Greene Castle Hill Batch Three 15-Year-Old Bourbon in a virtual tasting and came away very impressed.

On the nose, this 15-year-old bourbon is deep, layered, rich and delicious, with plenty of brown sugar, crème brûlée, caramel, vanilla custard and butterscotch, as well as a floral lavender note, plus cappuccino, banana pudding, peaches and cream and French toast.

On the palate, the whiskey presents a rich, thick viscosity and an excellent balance of oak and tannin. I typically get a recurring dusty-oak, peanut-shell profile in Milam and Greene whiskeys, and that’s present in this one but is dialed down and joined by a ton more. It’s super creamy and has notes of mocha, peach, orange, vanilla, cherry, cinnamon, raisin bread, gingerbread.

The finish is long and sweet with beautiful vanilla all the way, plus a kiss of oak and a great heat level.

Milam and Greene’s oldest release is also its best yet.

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