Very Olde St. Nick Immaculata Ancient Cask Bourbon Review

If there’s one trend in bourbon that makes me inherently uncomfortable, it’s when extremely expensive limited releases –we’re talking about bourbon beyond the $100 or $200 MSRP mark–don’t come with even a modicum of information for the consumer about what is actually in the bottle. Simply put, if you’re being asked to spend $200 or $300 on a bottle of bourbon, should you not be expecting to get copious amounts of detail on what you’re drinking? Or even a concrete age statement? This is the beginning of what I find myself pondering as I look at the details of a bottle such as Preservation Distillery’s Very Olde St. Nick Immaculata Ancient Cask Bourbon.

Granted, there are a lot of aspects about which we don’t necessarily expect a company to provide a lot of information. It’s common enough practice for respected non-distiller producers (NDPs) to not reveal–or not be able to divulge–the exact sources of where these whiskeys are coming from, even with MSRPs of $200 and beyond. We don’t always get an idea of mash bills, or percentages in a blend.

But the Very Olde St. Nick bourbon brand takes this a step further. We know that this is a product of Indiana and Kentucky, and we know that it contains bourbon “up to 15 years old,” but that’s it. We don’t know how much of the product is extra-mature, or how much younger bourbon is in the blend. We just don’t know much at all about the Immaculata brand beyond this, except that it represents “the pinnacle of the Very Olde St. Nick line,” a product lineup that until recently was more recently found in Japan and abroad than in the U.S. It’s not that the liquid in this bottle tastes young or immature–it’s just lacking in transparency for something carrying an MSRP of $260.

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So with that said, let’s give this mysterious cask strength (118.1 proof) bourbon blend a taste.

On the nose, Very Olde St. Nick Immaculata is heavy on the older oak aromatics, with hints of leather. I’m getting caramel and notable buttered popcorn here, with flashes of citrus and honey-roasted peanuts. The ethanol seems a tad hot to me, having seemingly not been smoothed out by what otherwise feels like a pretty mature and oak-forward profile.

On the palate, I’m getting caramel/toffee and old oak, chased by spice and honey-roasted nuts again. There’s some rye spice here, pushing occasionally in a more earthy direction, while the spice leans toward sweet stem ginger. Residual sweetness is mild to moderate when all it said and done, with the strong oakiness lending moderate tannin and drying things out somewhat, but not to a problematic degree. The alcohol heat again is pretty expressive here, even though one would certainly expect it to register at 118.1 proof, with a long-lasting spicy prickle on the tongue that suggests the likes of Sichuan peppercorns.

At the end of the day, this reads as a pretty mature bourbon with some appealing notes, though not a lot that specifically stands out to me as overly memorable. I’m left thinking that many drinkers will find themselves wishing they had more information about what is going into the bottle, when they’re being asked to pay $260 for it.

Distillery: Preservation Distillery
City: Bardstown, KY
Style: Blended bourbon whiskey
ABV: 59.05% (118.1 proof)
Availability: Limited, 750 ml bottles, $260 MSRP

Jim Vorel is a Paste staff writer and resident craft beer and spirits geek. You can follow him on Twitter for more drink writing.