Michter’s US★1 Bourbon is the featured bottle in Issue No. 001 — The Distillery Died. The Name Didn’t., where it serves as the house baseline rather than a scored review.
Michter’s says it enters its whiskey into the barrel at 103 proof, well below the federal 125-proof maximum, meaning more water is present during maturation and less is needed later to bring the mature whiskey to bottling strength. That is a genuine and unusual choice — and, like nearly every production specification in whiskey, it is a company statement rather than an independently audited fact. Michter’s publishes no mash bill for this or any expression.
The most useful thing to do with this bottle is not to rank it. It is to pour it beside US★1 Sour Mash and US★1 American Whiskey — three legal categories from one house, with the American Whiskey matured in used barrels — and work out which differences come from the grain and which come from the wood.
No numeric Ledger Score was published for this bottle; the issue treats it as a teaching exercise rather than a scored review. Full nose/palate/finish tasting notes have not been written up separately.