MB Roland Dark Fired Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Kentucky’s small-town secret distillery has created a smoked white corn Bourbon delivered uncut and unfiltered.

Paul and Merry Beth (MB) Tomaszewski founded the MB Roland Distillery in 2009 near the small town of Pembroke, Kentucky — just across the border from Tennessee, about sixty miles northwest of Nashville. The couple purchased an Amish farm and transformed into a family run craft distillery. They proudly state that their products are "uncut, unfiltered, still and barrel proof." That means that the Spirit goes straight from the still to the barrel, and then from the barrel to the bottle without interruption or any additives — not even water. That’s pretty impressive.

And the majority of the corn used to make Bourbon is a variety called "yellow dent." There’s nothing wrong with yellow dent corn, but the variety has been bred over hundreds of years for yield — more kernels per cob, more cobs per stalk, and more stalks per acre. Whether you are feeding livestock, making breakfast cereals, or are a giant Whiskey company high yield makes economic sense. But high yield does not necessarily mean high flavor.

MB Roland exclusively uses southern white corn which delivers a different flavor profile. For their Dark Fired Kentucky Straight Bourbon they smoke the corn in their tobacco shed prior to fermentation and age it in deeply-charred barrels — it’s like a Bourbon Bar-B-Q. And it’s bottled unfiltered and uncut straight from the barrel with an ABV ranging between 52.5% and 57.5% ABV.