Spiritless Original & Spiced Set (2 × 750 mL)

Spiritless is named for what it leaves out, and Kentucky 74 for the number it would have carried — the seventy-fourth distillery registered in the state when the company incorporated. Kentucky because they began where the state begins, with something bourbon-shaped.

The making of it is the interesting part. Hand-selected American oak, charred to different degrees, goes into the still with a high-proof neutral grain spirit. By working the heat and the pressure, they get in hours what a rickhouse takes years to give — the oak character that makes a bourbon taste like one. Then reverse distillation separates the ethanol out, and that ethanol goes back into the next batch rather than to waste.

What comes out is blended from separate distillations the way a bourbon is blended from barrels, and bottled under a stained mahogany cork. There are two: Kentucky 74, with caramel and vanilla over oak, and Kentucky 74 Spiced, which puts cinnamon in front of the same base.