Willett Family Estate Straight Bourbon Review, Barrel No. 704, 50.5% Frosted Yeast Rolls

Long ago (like a few years ago), one could just go into a liquor store and purchase a bottle of Willett Estate Bourbon and Ryes. Not these days. Estate Bourbons from Willett are rare, and expensive. 

The original estate bourbons weren’t even made by the distillery. The Willett family has an incredible collection of barrels they’ve been slowly selling to consumers over the years. While they were once broadly distributed to liquor stores, today they’re most often sold out of their gift shop. 

However, now that the distillery has been operational once again for several years, estate bourbons are making their way out that were produced on-premise. The bourbon reviewed here is one of them. 

“Frosted Yeast Rolls” is a special release from 2015 during the Kentucky Derby, and it’s Willet Distillery’s very own bourbon. In the case of Frosted Yeast Rolls, this is a five year old bourbon they made and matured on premise.

It’s a high corn mash bill of 79% corn, 7% rye, and 14% malted barley. You can see this whisky be introduced for the first time by Britt Kulsveen with Fred Minnick hosting. This was the first release of Willett’s high corn mash bill. It’s also the first barrel of Willett Estate that Britt Kulsveen (of Willett Kentucky family royalty) picked with her husband. 

There are so few mentions of this whisky online, I’m guessing many of them have been enjoyed in private. Still, I bet a few are being saved up for that special occasion. 

My tasting notes are below. 

Willett Straight Bourbon 5 years, Barrel No. 704, 50.5% Frosted Yeast Rolls
Willett Distillery
Category: Straight Bourbon, Single Barrel, Cask Strength. 
Score: For Patrons

Nose: Caramel, spoiled fruit (orange), barnyard hey, more orange, sweet cherries, and definitely a heavy yeast dough note. Not like a typical yeast note. This is different. It’s like sour beer yeastiness. Maybe the name on the bottle is getting into my head? 

Palate: A little nutty, a little sweet (honey), a lot of spice, some nuttiness, and a great olive oil base. The spice is heavy, but the liquid itself is syrupy sweet, so the combination is quite interesting. It tastes more familiar to an Old Grand Dad sort of style of whisky with a nutty note, that’s not overly thick oaked, but there are some nice complex elements here that elevate the whisky. 

Conclusion: It be easy to pass this off as an old grand dad high-proof bottling, but there’s a lot more here on the palate. The nose and palate are complimentary, but deceiving. It’s smooth on the nose, brash on the palate, this is a gem of a bourbon for Willett lovers.