Pappy Van Winkle is the most hunted whiskey in America, and the story earns the hype. Julian "Pappy" Van Winkle Sr. started as a traveling salesman for W.L. Weller & Sons in 1893, eventually buying the company and merging it with the A. Ph. Stitzel Distillery to form Stitzel-Weller, which opened its doors on Derby Day 1935. Pappy ran it on a single stubborn conviction — "We make fine bourbon at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon" — and built the house style around wheated bourbon, substituting wheat for rye in the mash bill for a softer, sweeter, longer-aging whiskey. The family lost the distillery in 1972, but Julian Van Winkle III kept bottling under the Old Rip Van Winkle name, and since 2002 the whiskey has been produced in partnership with Buffalo Trace using the family's wheated recipe. The lineup runs from Old Rip Van Winkle 10 Year and Van Winkle Special Reserve 12 Year through the Family Reserve 15, 20, and 23 Year bourbons, plus the Family Reserve 13 Year Rye — all released once a year in famously tiny quantities, with demand so far beyond supply that bottles routinely trade for ten to twenty times their retail price. Widely considered among the finest bourbon ever bottled, and genuinely deserving of the chase.

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