The whiskey label of Watch Hill Proper
We opened Watch Hill Proper in 2022 and filled it with more than 2,300 unique American whiskeys. In 2024 we started bottling our own.
We taste far more whiskey than we release and we expect to reject most of it. What survives goes into one of five series, each built for a different reason.
The Proper Series is the whiskey behind our own bar. It is made to be opened rather than shelved, and it is the one part of the range we produce continuously instead of in one time batches.
Kentucky straight bourbon and Kentucky straight rye, each at 110 proof, with a cask strength version of both for anyone who wants it undiluted.
In music a standard is a song that outlives its moment and comes to define the genre. Certain bottles do the same thing for American whiskey. The Definitive Series is our attempt at that, one blend at a time.
Every batch is blended once and never repeated, which means the whiskey in each release exists only in that release. Batches go to our Wine and Whiskey Bottle Club first, and whatever remains reaches the bar at Watch Hill Proper roughly two months later.
The Finishing Series exists for barrels we want to take somewhere they would not go on their own. Honey Toasted Reserve is the recurring release, a blend of toasted and honey finished Indiana and Kentucky whiskeys.
Once a year our Executive Chef Michael Crouch selects and blends a rye whiskey. He tastes for the same things he cooks for, so the result reads less like a distiller's blend and more like something built to sit next to food.
"Rye whiskey has always spoken to me, the spice, the complexity, the way it evolves with time."
Chef Michael J. Crouch
There is no schedule here. We taste constantly, expecting to reject nearly everything, and we do. Once in a while a barrel turns up that we cannot argue with.
That barrel becomes an Exceptional release, and the next one comes out whenever we find the next one. These are old, rare, and very small runs, and they sell out.
Buy the whiskey
Current releases, the Bottle Club, and whatever is still on the shelf.
Watch Hill Whiskey Co. is produced under license by The Blending House in Shelbyville, Kentucky, and is the whiskey label of Watch Hill Proper in Prospect, Kentucky.
