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The 15 Stars whiskey label was founded in the summer of 2019 by father and son entrepreneurs Rick and Ricky Johnson, who blended sourced whiskey in their own kitchen. The first expression wouldn’t be released until several years later, making its debut in April 2022. The Johnsons still follow that framework today, creating 15 Stars’s New Private Stock bourbon and First West rye batches from barrel samples in their kitchen, but these days they have extra help from Bardstown Bourbon Co. which physically blends the requested barrels and bottles each expression.
The label was founded to pay tribute to Kentucky’s distilling history, with the name referencing Kentucky being the 15th state admitted into the Union. Its offerings have won several awards and scored well with our tasting panel, with Triple Cask taking home an impressive 93-point rating. 15 Stars is kicking off the year by introducing new batches of two fan-favorite expressions: Private Stock bourbon and First West rye.
Private Stock is a blend of two sourced Kentucky bourbons, with a mashbill that averages 72% corn, 20% rye, and 8% malted barley. Though the original bottling comprised 7 and 15 year old liquids, the new batch has replaced the younger component with an 8 year old. Everything else, from the barrel choice and liquid source to the mashbill and 53.5% ABV proof point, is unchanged.
As First West Rye Batch 2-SSDD’s batch code (which stands for Same Spirit Different Day) indicates, the liquid is identical to the original. These bottles were filled in November 2023, just a few months after the first batch was released to the public, and were held back for release until now. The whiskey itself is a blend of three rye whiskeys, all made from 95% rye and 5% malted barley and aged between 6 and 9 years, that were sourced from Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky. It was bottled at 52.5% ABV.
First West Rye ($89) and Private Stock ($140) are currently available in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Oregon, Tennessee, and online via Seelbachs or 15 Stars’s website.
