MEDLEY’S PRIVATE STOCK
Limited Release (2015)MASH BILL – 77% corn, 10% rye, 13% barley
PROOF – 90
AGE – 10 years
DISTILLERY – Bottled by Charles Medley Distillery, contract distilling with an unnamed Kentucky distillery
PRICE – $70
MEDLEY BROS HERITAGE
Standard Release (20??)MASH BILL – 77% corn, 10% rye, 13% barley
PROOF – 102
AGE – NAS (4+ years)
DISTILLERY – Bottled by Charles Medley Distillery, contract distilling with an unnamed Kentucky distillery
PRICE – $39
I love Medley’s Private Stock. Is that because it’s the most amazing bourbon I’ve ever had? No. My love for Medley’s Private Stock is born of the taste experience itself, the story behind it, and circumstance.
We’ll get to the taste experience down below. The story, in brief, is that Charles Medley was born into a longstanding whiskey-making family. He spent the bulk of his life working at the Medley Distilling Company, starting in the early 1960s. Over the decades the distillery was sold a number of times. But every new owner wisely kept Charles Medley on as master distiller. In 1995, Medley purchased it back himself and adjusted the name to make it even more personal—the Charles Medley Distillery.
Finally, in 2007, he sold the distillery to Angostura. As a part of the deal, he kept the Medley family recipes. This allowed him to continue making bourbon to his own specifications through a contract-distillation arrangement with another unnamed Kentucky distillery. His son, Sam Medley, now co-owns and operates the business. Together they oversee and determine everything—grain selection, mash bill, yeast, fermentation, distillation, barreling, bottling, marketing…
The Medley operation is small but robust. Marketing is minimal. Their former website has even been discontinued. It would seem their bourbon makes its way around the country on the Medley name alone. That’s what eight generations in the business can earn you, I guess. It’s pretty clear that the Medley bourbons—whether this one-time Private Stock release, or the more common Medley Bros Heritage and Wathen’s Single Barrel releases—are made for love.
That’s the story. As for the circumstance, I first enjoyed Medley’s Private Stock in 2019, when I stumbled upon a very dusty bottle of it at Ledger’s Liquors in Berkeley, CA. I really liked it—you can read my notes on that bottle here. So in 2022 when I found two more bottles at a side-street shop near San Francisco’s Union Square, and like Ledger’s they too had kept the price within reach, I broke my no-bunkering rule and bought them both.
High-quality Kentucky bourbon aged 10 years and priced under three digits is increasingly uncommon these days. But very few people care about Medley’s. For example, that San Francisco shop also had a bottle of George T. Stagg for $2000, so, they were up on the unicorns people chase and didn’t think to up the ante on this rare little one-time wonder.
Great! My favorite kind of unicorn—tastes good, affordable, totally under the radar. If only it was a regular release!
Medley Bros Heritage is itself a regular release. Or it was. In recent years I’ve spotted it less and less often, and as I said the website for it has been taken down. I see their Wathen’s Single Barrels pop up much more often. But a year+ ago while poking about one of my regular whiskey shop haunts, I clocked yet again the handful of Medley Bros Heritage bottles still sitting dusty in their usual spot on the bottom shelf. I decided to give it a go. Well over a year later I finally uncorked it.
It immediately came across quite different to me from what I was familiar with in other Medley offerings. Tasted blind I’d have sworn it was a lower shelf Beam product! A comparison was in order.
So here we are, ten weeks after uncorking the Medley’s Private Stock and nearing five weeks after uncapping the Medley Bros Heritage. I’m halfway through the Private Stock and three pours into the Heritage. These brief notes were taken using both simple brandy glasses and traditional Glencairns.
COLOR
PRIVATE STOCK – pale amber-orange with rich brass and gold highlights
HERITAGE – the same only slightly lighter when scrutinized
NOSE
PRIVATE STOCK – caramel, vanilla, bright baking and oak spice, air dried oak, clementine orange rind
HERITAGE – caramel, roasted peanut, vanilla, clementine oranges, subtle baking spice
TASTE
PRIVATE STOCK – very like the nose, with the spices leaning forward and the vanilla brightening
HERITAGE – also very like the nose, with the peanut veering into an herbal note like bay leaf
FINISH
PRIVATE STOCK – like the taste and nose before it, now with the orange rind leaning in again and a gentle peppery flare
HERITAGE – leaves a fine peppery numbness with just a bit of bite up front, with faint peanut and toasted caramel
OVERALL
PRIVATE STOCK – easygoing, old fashioned bourbon goodness with very nice oak and citrus notes
HERITAGE – easygoing but with a bit more kick, with a common bottom-shelf Kentucky bourbon vibe
WORTH BUYING?
PRIVATE STOCK – Yes, if you find it for two digits
HERITAGE – No, although this would serve cocktails just as well as any lower shelf Jim Beam product
Tasting these side by side, their relationship is clear. It’s most obvious in the spices and clementine orange aspects. I still get a Jim Beam vibe from the Heritage that I don’t get one bit from the Private Stock. And at 102 proof the Heritage offers a bit more bite. But they’re clearly family.
I’ll reach for the Private Stock when I want an old-fashioned, quality Kentucky bourbon experience that’s down to earth. This bourbon tastes like cheap bourbon from another time, when “cheap” was richer than it is today, the stocks older and the pipes seasoned like a good kitchen’s iron skillet. Something rustic and homey about it rather than mass produced.
I’ll put the Heritage toward cocktails for sure. There are plenty of other options like it for sipping if I’m in the mood for a no-nonsense bottom-shelf sip. But the 102 proof will likely pop well in an Old-Fashioned or Manhattan, and the peanut and spice notes will make great friends with Angostura bitters.
In any variation, Medley’s whiskeys offer a taste from another time. They don’t aim to be “refined” or anything remotely highfalutin. Just good, solid, easy to drink bourbon with a small-batch sense of care about it. A nice brand to offset the many mass-produced Kentucky bourbons out there.
Cheers!
The Right Spirit 