09/02/2026
Fine, I’m finished droning on about how great Dark Arts is (temporarily) and moving on to Wilderness Trail. ✔️
But there’s a twist!
Macaulay Minton, the President and Chief Alchemist at Dark Arts, fell right off the Wilderness Trail family tree. Before starting Dark Arts, he built and ran their single-barrel program. So let’s consider this one “Dark Arts adjacent.”
But it doesn't matter. As the first bottled-in-bond, wheated, sweet-mash bourbon released in Kentucky since Prohibition, this bottle can handle itself just fine.
And with those specs, it should be sweet, right? It is.
Still, some wh***eys can take a step too far in their quest for sweet, long-lasting flavor. Instead of producing baking spice notes, they come off smelling like the Caramel Kiss Yankee Candle that Mom and “Uncle” Rodney forgot to blow out last night.
Not this bottle. Make no mistake—the sweetness is there; it’s just not overpowering to the extent that you don’t pick up the oak and grain, too.
There’s a word for that, you know. I think it was Mr. Miyagi’s most memorable advice: “Balance, Daniel-san.”
Balance. ⚖️🥃
