Boone County Bourbon: Made By Ghosts, and the Kosher Wine-Cask Bottle
Boone County Distilling Co. sells its bourbon under the tagline "Made By Ghosts," which is a better piece of writing than most distilleries manage. The ghosts are real enough: there was a Boone County distillery in northern Kentucky before Prohibition, Prohibition killed it, and the name sat silent for most of a century until a modern operation picked it up and started distilling again on the Ohio River at Petersburg.
There are two Boone County bottles on our shelf and they are very different propositions. The flagship Small Batch is $59.99. The other one is a $84.99 bourbon finished in Israeli wine casks under OU supervision, which is a sentence that would not have been possible a decade ago.
The quick answers
| Small Batch | x Dalton Wine Cask | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $59.99 | $84.99 |
| Alcohol | 45.4% — 90.8 proof | 47% — 94 proof |
| Style | Kentucky straight bourbon | Straight bourbon, wine-cask finished |
| Age | Blend of 5 to 14 year barrels | Straight bourbon, cask-finished |
| Hashgacha on our listing | None recorded | OU |
| Kosher for Passover | No | No |
Both bottles: Boone County.
Boone County Small Batch, $59.99
The flagship, and the one people mean when they search the name. It is a blend of barrels aged anywhere from five to fourteen years, bottled at 90.8 proof, in a bottle shape copied from a two-hundred-year-old Kentucky flask.
That age spread is the interesting part. Most bourbon at this price is a tight blend of similar-age barrels; reaching up to fourteen years pulls in older, rounder, more oak-driven whiskey, and blending it back against five-year stock keeps the result from going woody. Our tasting notes read aged oak, vanilla, sweet almond and a top note of sugar-cookie dough, with sweet oak, caramel and biscuit-like almond across the mid-palate, then a dash of aged rye and a pinch of cinnamon on the exit.
The sommelier line on the listing is the fairest summary of it: a quietly polished Kentucky pour — restraint, not muscle. At 90.8 proof it is not a hot whiskey, and it is not trying to be a barrel-proof monster. Serve it neat, over a large cube, or in a Manhattan. It is very good with smoked brisket, pecan pie or aged cheddar.
One thing to know before you buy it
Our listing is explicit about this, so we will be too: this particular expression does not record a hechsher. Boone County does have an OU line, but it covers their Eighteen33 10-Year, Bourbon Cream and Tanner's Curse — bottles we do not currently carry — and not the Small Batch. The listing tells you to verify against your own kashrut standard, and that is the right instruction. Ask your rav, not a wine shop.
If a hechsher is a requirement rather than a preference, skip to the next bottle, because the next bottle has one.
Boone County x Dalton Wine Cask, $84.99 — the interesting one
This is the bottle worth going out of your way for, and the reason is a technicality that happens to be a big deal.
Finishing whiskey in a wine cask is one of the most popular moves in modern distilling — you get red-fruit sweetness and extra depth that plain oak cannot give. It is also, for kosher drinkers, usually the end of the conversation. The problem is not the whiskey, it is the cask: a barrel that previously held non-kosher wine is a non-kosher vessel, and the whiskey that rests in it picks up what was there. That is why the wine-finished shelf is mostly off-limits and why so many Scotches and bourbons with lovely reviews are not an option.
This bottle solves it at the source. Boone County straight bourbon was finished in casks from Dalton Winery in Israel's Upper Galilee — a kosher winery, so the casks were kosher to begin with — and then bottled under OU supervision. The cask is not a workaround; it is the whole point.
In the glass, at 47% and 94 proof: caramel and vanilla on the nose with dark red-fruit lift from the Dalton cask over a warm oak edge. The palate is full-bodied and layered, bourbon corn sweetness into dried cherry, cocoa and soft baking spice. The finish is long and warm with a lingering red-fruit note and a kick of rye spice. Serve it neat or over one big cube. It is an after-dinner bottle — our note has it with dark chocolate, dried fruit and hard cheeses after a Yom Tov meat meal, which is exactly right.
Town Branch Kentucky Straight Bourbon, $34.99
Worth its own section, because it is the other Kentucky bourbon on the shelf that people search for by name and nobody explains. Town Branch comes from Lexington Brewing and Distilling Co., the Alltech operation in Lexington, and it is built differently from its neighbours.
A standard bourbon mash bill is corn with a little rye and a little malted barley — the barley is there for enzymes, not flavour, usually around 5%. Town Branch runs 15% malted barley, three times the usual, and you can taste it. It is softer, less spicy and distinctly grainier than most Kentucky bourbon, with toasted oats, honey, vanilla and a touch of dried apple, then gentle caramel and malted barley with a creamy mouthfeel. The finish is short to medium and clean, with honey hanging on.
At 40% and 80 proof it is the gentlest bourbon in this piece by some distance. The listing's phrase is the malt-heads' bourbon, and if you normally drink Scotch and find bourbon loud, this is the bridge. It is lovely with apple pie or soft cheeses, or as an easy after-dinner sip. Our listing records no hashgacha for it, same caveat as the Small Batch.
The bourbons that do record a hechsher
Our Kosher Bourbon collection runs to forty-nine bottles on the shelf, and only five of them record a hashgacha on the listing. Notice what three of the five have in common — they are wine or port cask finishes, solved at the cask:
| Bottle | What makes it work | Hashgacha | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wyoming Whiskey Small Batch | Plain oak, no wine cask, Wyoming grain, 44% | OU | $42.99 |
| Boondocks 6 Year Port Finish | Finished in genuine kosher port barrels, 47.5% | OU | $44.99 |
| Wyoming Whiskey Single Barrel | Single barrel, plain oak | OU | $46.99 |
| Traverse City Port Barrel Finish | Kosher port casks from Kedem, 45% | cRc | $39.99 |
| Boone County x Dalton Wine Cask | Kosher wine casks from Dalton, Upper Galilee, 47% | OU | $84.99 |
That pattern is the single most useful thing to take away from this page. When a finished whiskey carries a hechsher, it is almost always because somebody went and sourced kosher casks on purpose — Kedem port barrels, Dalton wine barrels, Royal Wine's port casks. The general principles are written up in is your whiskey kosher.
What else sixty dollars buys on the bourbon shelf
| Bottle | Character | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Four Roses Yellow Label | Light, floral, the easy entry point | $28.99 |
| Maker's Mark | Wheated, soft, no rye bite | $32.99 |
| Town Branch | Malt-forward, gentle, 80 proof | $34.99 |
| Bulleit | High rye, spicy, a cocktail workhorse | $34.99 |
| Knob Creek 9 Year | Big, oaky, 100 proof | $36.99 |
| Four Roses Small Batch | Four mash bills blended, balanced | $39.99 |
| Woodford Reserve | Rich, fruity, widely loved | $40.00 |
| Michter's US*1 Small Batch | Low barrel-entry proof, rounded | $42.99 |
| Basil Hayden | High rye, light-bodied, delicate | $46.99 |
| Blade and Bow | Solera-aged, Stitzel-Weller stock | $59.99 |
| Boone County Small Batch | 5 to 14 year blend, polished, restrained | $59.99 |
| Widow Jane 10 Year | Ten years stated, limestone water | $69.99 |
| Boone County x Dalton | Kosher Israeli wine cask, OU | $84.99 |
At $59.99 the Small Batch's nearest comparison is Blade and Bow, which is the same money and also sells on a story — there is a full write-up in the Blade and Bow guide. Blade and Bow is the richer, more theatrical pour; Boone County is the quieter and better-mannered one.
Which one to buy
If you want a hechsher on the bottle, buy the Dalton Wine Cask at $84.99. It is the most interesting bourbon in this piece by a wide margin, it is the best after-dinner bottle of the three, and a kosher wine-cask bourbon is a genuinely rare object.
If you want a soft, gentle, everyday bourbon and you are comfortable with the kashrut question, Town Branch at $34.99 is the value pick on this page.
The Small Batch at $59.99 sits in between: a well-made, restrained, five-to-fourteen-year Kentucky bourbon with a good story, and no hechsher recorded.
New to the category? Start with bourbon versus whiskey and rye versus bourbon, then browse Kosher Bourbon. We ship everywhere in the country — if you want it, we will get it to you.
