The story behind the Fortuna brand is only eclipsed by the incredible quality of the spirit in the bottle. Re-established by Pablo Moix of the preeminent Rare Character bottler, the original brand was once one of Kentucky's most sought-after. Phil Hollenbach created the brand to share his "good fortune" with the world and now we're extremely grateful and lucky to do the same. Each tiny 6-barrel batch is hand blended by Pablo. While he can't tell us who is distilling for him, he can tell us who is NOT. The product is produced "on the shelf," referring to the famous limestone shelf that makes bourbon country, and its water, so special. It's not a sweet mash or a pot still, so not being sourced from any number of new distillers. So that leaves one of the legacy distillers, which to be honest is absolutely incredible on its own. There are no new brands that get access to stocks from legacy distillers, even ones that seem to have access from certain places, are working through limit brokered stocks. But beyond the access that Fortuna has garnered, the incredible breadth of tasting knowledge and experience that Pablo is unprecedented. Here, Mr. Moix tries his hand at blending, and I have to say he's hit an absolute home run. Guided by samples of the original stocks, which come out of his personal collection, Pablo carefully mingles these stocks with the goal of capturing the original character of this ancient whiskey brand. I can't believe anyone else is taking so much time and energy to put together such a delicious product. Let's taste it! Right out of the bottle the nose is absolutely singing. Big, sweet aromas of marzipan, vibrant red cherry, caramel candies, Seville orange oil, roasted clove and fresh ground cinnamon. The nose is absolutely enchanting and exemplifies the goal of recreating the flavor profile you might expect from a pre-pro bottling. It even seems to have that little twinge of dustiness that I always associate with whiskies that have been in the bottle for many decades -albeit not to an overwhelming degree. On the palate, an extremely velvety texture and rounded mouth feel, with even more cherries -candied now, gingerbread, sweet vanilla bean, brown sugar syrup, baking spices of all kinds. The finish is long and very easy. No tannin or burn coming through whatsoever, but the ultra-sweet caramel character is slight spicy bite. The key take away here is BALANCE! SO many whiskies we drink these days are just absolute bombs, this has all the presence and character of the great small batches from the big dogs but adds a level of nuance and complexity that's rarely seen in modern bourbon. I guess that's why they call it Rare Character. We're all so FORTUNATE to have Pablo bringing these incredible barrels to our shelves and proud to be Fortuna's first customer in California.