Jackie Zykan has been very busy since she left her job as master taster for Kentucky distillery Old Forester a few years ago. In 2022, she cofounded Hidden Barn with Neeley Family Distillery, a small brand that has released some very good whiskeys over the past few years. The tenth expression was announced earlier this month, and it’s another very small batch release that was made using wild Appalachian yeast.
As master taster, Zykan had a hand in product development at Old Forester, one of the biggest legacy brands in the world of Kentucky bourbon. At Hidden Barn, her title is now master blender, so she is intrinsically involved in blending together the various barrels of bourbon that were distilled at the Neeley Family Distillery. (The distillery acquired Hidden Barn, but Zykan is still an owner and the brand now has a physical home.) Last summer, Hidden Barn released a 7-year-old bourbon that was, in this writer’s opinion, its best release to date. I did not have the opportunity to sample the new release, called Slow Fade, but the details sound intriguing.
Slow Fade is part of Hidden Barn’s Series One lineup, which has a lower percentage of rye in the mashbill than Series Two (the exact recipe is 70 percent corn, 20 percent rye, and ten percent malted barley). This is a younger bourbon than last summer’s release, a blend of barrels aged from five to six years that were distilled by Royce Neeley. The whiskey was double pot distilled and fermented with wild Appalachian yeast for five days in open cypress tanks, something that the Neeley family claims to have done for many years. The type and the quality of yeast have a great impact upon a whiskey’s flavor, so a bourbon made with a proprietary yeast like the one Jack Daniel’s uses or a commercially produced brewer’s yeast will have a very different palate.
Slow Fade was bottled at 106.5 proof and was only filtered to remove sediment instead of undergoing the chill filtration process. According to Zykan, it’s a well balanced bourbon with notes of brown butter, black cherry, and orange zest on the nose, followed by cacao and hazelnut on the palate. The name comes from Zykan’s note that there is a sweetness that fades slowly on the finish with a bit of warmth from the higher proof.
As mentioned before, Slow Fade (SRP $80) is a limited release. You can pick up a bottle at the Neeley Family Distillery in Sparta, Ky., or from select retailers in Kentucky, Indiana, New York, California, Georgia, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. You can also check online retailers like Seelbach’s to see if they have a bottle of this latest expression.
