Old Medley 12 years

About the Old Medley 12 years

Old Medley 12 years is a Kentucky straight bourbon bottled at 43.4% ABV. The brand belongs to the Medley family of Owensboro, a distilling town on the Ohio River. Twelve years in the barrel puts it well past the four to six years most bourbon gets. The mash bill is corn heavy: 77% corn, 10% rye and 13% malted barley. Wathen's single barrel uses that same recipe with less time in wood. The family story starts around 1800. John Medley IV moved from Maryland to Kentucky and began distilling. A great-grandson, George, shifted the operation to Owensboro in 1901. Five Medley brothers bought the Green River Distillery there in 1940. Charles Medley became master distiller in 1969 and later bought the plant himself. He sold it to Angostura in 2007 and held on to the family recipes. Those recipes are why this name still exists. Sweetness leads the aroma. Orange peel and fresh fruit come first, then vanilla and caramel settle underneath. Honey runs through the middle of it. There is grain behind it all. The palate keeps that sweet, honeyed weight going rather than turning sharp. At 86.8 proof, nothing here hits hard. Twelve years show up at the end. Dry oak takes over, the tannic grip of old wood arrives, and the sweetness pulls back fast. Old Medley 12 years arrived in early 2013 as a one time release. Only 2,500 cases went out, which is small for a bourbon on a national shelf. The extra aging is the whole point. Wathen's shows the recipe young and bright. Twelve years trades some of that fruit for depth and dry wood. If you want the Medley recipe at full stretch, this is the bottle.