“We had these unique heirloom colored corns—red, white, blue, and black—from our family popcorn company, Black Jewel. And one summer, my dad [Rick] asked if I could turn them into bourbon,” Ricky Johnson tells Maxim, referencing how the story of 15 Stars began in a place few would expect: a popcorn field. “I was in college as a business student at the time, so It was just supposed to be a side project. We honestly didn’t expect to end up doing it, but by the end of the summer apparently my plan was compelling enough.”
That project led the father-son duo to Bardstown Bourbon Company (BBC), at the time a relatively new but rising force in Kentucky distilling. Intrigued by the chemical makeup of Black Jewel’s proprietary ancestral Baby Black Corn, naturally they wondered if it would be viable fuel for bourbon. So BBC ran some test distillations and found that the heirloom corn’s chemistry and sugar makeup mirrored that of the yellow dent corn traditionally used in bourbon. By November 2019, they began distilling their first batch of black corn bourbon.
Thusly Rick and Ricky Johnson’s 15 Stars label was born. But as any whiskey lover knows, great bourbon takes time. Their BBC-distilled heirloom corn spirits wouldn’t be ready for years — coincidentally, the first batch will debut this summer — so they needed a more urgent solution. “Look, I’m not a spring chicken, right?” The older Johnson chuckles. “I want to still be alive when we do this stuff!”
So Rick and Ricky found another path: sourced aged whiskey to develop their flavor library—and their brand. But another unsuspected wrinkle developed during countless late-night tasting sessions as they worked through flights of different whiskey styles (rye vs bourbon vs wheated whiskey, etc) and mash bill recipes. A pattern emerged from the chaos. “Every time we played around with blending different whiskeys, we came up with something better than what was in the original barrels,” Rick reveals. “So we realized: why would we ever just bottle something as-is, when we can blend and elevate it?”
Rick credits his son’s prodigious olfactory senses for their innate talent in the craft of blending. “Ricky’s always had a great nose, and great flavor,” Rick shares with a grin. “As an eight-year-old kid he could smell a McDonald’s two miles away. He’s always had the knack.”
So early on, only about a year and a half in to their sourcing adventures, the duo resolved to be more intentional with blending, rather than just bottling off-the-shelf products. Blending, for 15 Stars, isn’t just a way to work around youth or inconsistency—it’s an art form in itself. So the Johnsons turned the process into a defining characteristic of their identity.
“That’s when we decided that blending was something we really believed in and wanted to make products with,” Ricky reveals. “So we started sourcing to build an inventory of different flavor profiles that we could use in the mix we wanted.” Hence their first new bottling of 2025, the 15 Stars Three Ports Fine-Aged Bourbon. A blend of 9- and 15-year-old Kentucky bourbons, finished in three types of port casks: Ruby, Tawny and White. It’s the first whiskey ever finished with a trio of different port barrels, and it showcases exactly what the brand is about: complexity, balance, and exploration.
“We called it a still life of a fruit bowl,” Ricky says, smiling. “The Ruby brought in that deep red fruit. The Tawny added darker, aged fruit tones. And the White Port contributed soft, floral fruit notes like pear and apricot. Every sip brought out something new—cherry, apple, blueberry, even peach.”
To capture the full spectrum of those flavors, the team turned to yet another often overlooked yet critical aspect of their craft: proofing. One the Johnsons take great care in, employing what Ricky dubs Flavor Proofing. In contrast to traditional methods that proof a whiskey down for volume and cost efficiency (what he calls “Account Proofing”), or for marketing appeal like ‘cask strength’ or ‘bottled-in-bond’ (aka ‘Market Proofing’ in the Johnson parlance), 15 Stars adjusts proof to optimize flavor as an integral part of the blending process.
“During our blending process, when we’re trying various component percentages in the blend, we’re also trying these different blends at like five different proofs up and down the alcohol range to try and figure out where we where we like them proof-wise,” Ricky explains. “Because proofing of bourbon really affects the flavors that are pronounced in it.”
Through much experimentation they’ve found a sweet spot lies usually between 100 and 110-proof (50- to 55-percent ABV). For their Three Ports Bourbon, the bulls-eye ended up at 103-proof (51.5-percent ABV). “Blending, proofing, flavor—these aren’t just parts of the process,” Rick adds in a sagely tone. “They are the process. We’re not trying to mold whiskey into our idea of where it should be — we’re letting it show us what it can become.” Pick up 15 Stars Three Ports Aged 9- and 15-Years Fine Aged Bourbon at its $179 SRP here.
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