Tasting Notes: Slightly sweeter and yet also a bit spicier than the Signature recipe it’s based on, Ragged Branch Secretariat Reserve brings to the pour a healthy dose of dried fruit and raisin and burnt sugar, and finishes with a little heat - just like the racehorse it’s named after.

About: Ragged Branch Secretariat Reserve Bourbon is a limited-edition bourbon celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Secretariat’s historic Triple Crown win. Made from a mash bill of corn, rye, and malted barley, and aged for over five years, Ragged Branch Secretariat Reserve features corn exclusively grown on the Virginia farm on which the legendary racehorse was born and raised.

A lot of people think that Secretariat was a Kentucky horse because he won the Kentucky Derby, but he was actually from Virginia," says Alex Toomy, founding partner and head distiller at Ragged Branch Distillery. "The best racehorses can come from here, and so can the best bourbon."

In 1973 at just three years old, Secretariat won racing's greatest hat trick: the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes. His Triple Crown victories set records that have never been broken, and his legendary performance remains one of the greatest sports stories of all time. In honor of this hometown hero, Ragged Branch Distillery used corn grown on the farm where Secretariat was born, earmarking it for a special bourbon to honor "Big Red.

Both Secretariat and Ragged Branch represent Virginia excellence. They're truly top of the line," says Kate Chenery Tweedy, daughter of Penny Chenery, who raised Secretariat. "We had no idea back in 1973 that Secretariat's records would never be surpassed and we'd still be talking about him fifty years later as the best of the best.