Michter's Pot Still Sour Mash Whiskey, which was the company's most popular expression before it declared bankruptcy in 1919, is made in accordance with original sour mash tradition. By using sour mash, which refers to the art of using a small amount of spent mash from an older batch of whiskey in order to catalyze fermentation in a new batch of whiskey, Pratt is able to maintain consistency with each bottling. While Magliocco readily admits that he wanted to pay tribute to the original Michter's Sour Mash, which was comprised of a mash of 50% rye, 38% corn and 12% barley, the current release isn't an attempt to reproduce it exactly. Rather, it was inspired by the older version, but with the intention of improving it. "If it was like everything else," says Magliocco, "we wouldn't have released it."

Jim Beam's Old Overholt Bottled-in-Bond is a 100-proof straight rye whiskey with a rich, spicy profile balancing notes of caramel, dark fruit, vanilla, and baking spices with a peppery rye bite and warm oak finish. It adheres to the Bottled-in-Bond Act, meaning it is aged for at least four years, bottled at 100 proof (50% ABV), and produced by a single distillery in a single distilling season.