The Story

When we picked up our bottle of Middle West Spirits’ Straight Wheated Bourbon Whiskey, we hadn’t heard anything about the brand. We were traveling through Indiana on our way down to Kentucky, and we decided to check out one of our favorite places to hit on the drive down called Gay’s Hops n’ Schnapps. While their name does not contain whiskey, rest assured that their stores do. Lots of whiskey (and other spirits too).

We made our way to the whiskey aisle and happily grabbed a few bottles that we couldn’t get in our state. While perusing the shelves, something caught our eye: Middle West’s Wheated Bourbon. There are a few reasons that it caught our attention. First, the packaging is absolutely beautiful. The attention to detail on the bottle design indicated to us that effort and thought was put into catching your attention, and when we see that, we always wonder about the whiskey inside. Surely if you’re willing to put that much effort into catching a shopper’s eye, for even a fleeting moment, then you must be willing to back it up with whatever’s inside the bottle. Second, it said it was a wheated bourbon. Now we’d be happy to be proven wrong, but in our experience we haven’t run across too many ‘wheaters’ here in our neck of the woods and we like them, so that was a huge selling point. Honestly we love four grains too, which this bottle definitely is, and that was just as effective in getting us to buy the bottle. Lastly, the price point is great – right in the mid $40 range. So in the end we figured ‘what the heck, might as well give it a shot’ and purchased it.

After doing some research we learned that Middle West is a newer distillery (relatively speaking) as they got started in 2010 and take great pride being in the Ohio River Valley region.

According to the website, their Michelone Reserve bourbon (that’s the one we’re reviewing here) bears the name of the ‘grandfather who started it all’ which we assume is the grandfather of the founding family.

This bottle is non age stated so we can guess it’s at least 4 years old and boasts a four grain mashbill comprised of sweet yellow corn, soft red winter wheat, dark pumpernickel rye and two-row barley – though percentages of each are not listed. Michelone Reserve comes in at 95 proof.

So let’s pop the cork and see what this four grain has to offer.

Nose

The nose presents a good array of sweet and savory notes including butterscotch and caramel, some coffee, hazelnut and a touch of smoke and leather.

Palate

It’s smooth on the palate and sweet upfront with toffee, caramel and a touch of oak, smoke, pepper spice and coffee.

Finish

The finish has some really pleasant dark fruit notes and maintains a bit of leather near the end, while some banana cream sweetness shines through with a nice touch of baking spice.

Verdict

Our bottle was well in the affordable area of $46.99 which makes this easy for us to recommend as a buy. It’s an easy sipper and provides a wonderful array of flavors throughout. We would say a reasonable price range for this bottle would be anywhere from $45-$60.

Overall we’re rating Middle West Spirits Straight Wheated Bourbon Whiskey Michelone Reserve a 7.9 out of 10 for having both light and rich sweet notes and enjoyable smoke and leather flavors which make it a very well-rounded pour.

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Cheers friends!