It’s finally here—today’s pourcast is the Peerless Henry Craver Old Reserve 10-Year Kentucky Straight Bourbon (Batch 1), and this one has been hyped for a while. It’s Peerless’s first official age-stated bourbon, and it also marks 10 years since the family revived the brand under the same DSP. It’s named for Henry Craver, the original Kentucky Peerless founder from 1889, and while the mash bill is undisclosed, we do know it’s a rye bourbon. It’s sweet mash, non-chill filtered, and the first batch comes in at 117.6 proof. I went straight at the big question: is it worth keeping on your radar, or is it just an expensive milestone bottle—especially with that $195 MSRP? The color is dark, and the nose is flat-out excellent and insanely deep: dark oak, sweet tobacco, maple, almond extract, vanilla bean ice cream, a little smokiness, and even a doughy cinnamon thing. The palate matches the complexity—dark, sweet, and fruity—with butter pecan ice cream, shortbread cookie, dark chocolate, fig, and dark cherry, plus a finish that leans into char, tobacco, cherry, dark chocolate, and cinnamon stick. When I add it all up, I landed at an 8.8/10 on my Lightning Counter—top of the “Great” category—currently in my top five whiskies of the year and absolutely a contender for my best bourbons of 2026. For me, it lived up to the hype.