No release embodies Widow Jane’s renegade spirit more fully than The Vaults series—an annual blend built from the label’s most mature, carefully guarded bourbon stocks. For Sienna Jevremov, who took over Head Blender and Distiller duties from the widely respected Lisa Wicker in late 2022 (although Jevremov’s been with the company since 2012), The Vaults is not simply a whiskey. As the Red Hook distillery both distills and sources its juice, the flagship Vaults expression is a Brooklyn narrative told through bourbon collected from across America, finished in rare woods, and expressed via the emotions she wants to capture in a single glass.
“Each year the stock of whiskey I draw from is completely different,” Jevremov tells Maxim, describing her process as equal parts sensory detective work and artistic interpretation. “That’s both a source of inspiration and a creative challenge. I have to learn the character of each barrel—its taste, texture, and temperament—and decide what story I want to tell that year.” Some years, the barrels lead her somewhere unexpected. Others, she arrives with a vision and chases it relentlessly.
In 2024, that vision revolved around Amburana, a notoriously assertive South American wood famed for its use aging Brazilian cachaça. “I literally had it added a quarter gallon at a time, tasting after each addition to find the line between intriguing and overdone,” she recalls. It was a technical challenge but one she embraced. The Vaults 2025, however, unfolded differently. The base bourbons—long-aged stocks sourced from Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee—were remarkably uniform in age at 15 years, but their personalities varied wildly. This diversity bequeathed the newly minted Master Blender a wide palette of flavors to work with, one which demanded precision. “I knew exactly what I wanted to evoke, so I spent more time than ever before refining each batch—tweaking, tasting, and adjusting until it sang in the glass.”
Normally once the barrels arrive in Brooklyn, the real work begins: marrying their profiles, finishing in unique oak, and finally proofing with limestone-rich Rosendale water before bottling in Red Hook. Yet the soul of Vaults 2025 wasn’t shaped in Brooklyn—it was born thousands of miles away on the island of Crete. Earlier this year, Jevremov traveled to Greece and hiked a gorge filled with mountain sage, wild herbs, and winds carrying the scent of sunbaked stone.
“I wanted to bottle a little of that landscape—the sun, the herbs, the stone, and the sense of ancient endurance that defines Greece.”
Widow Jane Head Distiller Sienna Jevremov
“It was wild, fragrant, and unforgettable—right down to losing our car keys and having to walk the entire route twice!” she recalls, laughing at the memory. But the craggy, arid vista left more than a travel memory—the Crete soil became the emotional blueprint for the whiskey she wanted to create. “I wanted to bottle a little of that landscape—the sun, the herbs, the stone, and the sense of ancient endurance that defines Greece.”
That vision led her to a finishing material she had never used before: Mythological Greek Oak. Rarely seen in American whiskey, the Balkan wood behaves somewhat like American white oak but expresses an entirely different character. “Greek oak is closest in behavior to American white oak, but its personality is entirely its own,” Jevremov explains. Where American oak leans into coconut, vanilla, and caramel, Greek oak brings out something more rugged and savory. “If Mizunara is perfumed—temple incense and sandalwood—Greek oak is wild and Mediterranean: mountain herbs, wild honey, and dried fig.” Its biological structure resembles tighter-grained European oak like French Limousin, yielding moderate extraction and surprising balance, especially when paired with older whiskey.
Sourcing the wood, however, was its own adventure. Greek oak is rarely exported for cooperage, and finding staves properly seasoned for barrel-making took patience and persistence. Through a partner, Alteroak, Widow Jane secured a limited selection harvested from ancient forests in Amfilochia, Greece—just enough to run trials and evaluate how this unorthodox wood would behave. Because there was no roadmap, Jevremov tested relentlessly. She approached the finishing process the way a chef approaches a rare ingredient: with curiosity, respect, and a willingness to discard any blend that didn’t meet her expectations.
What she found was something wholly unexpected, the staves requiring one to two years of air-seasoning to smooth any green tannins. “The most surprising result was how seamlessly it integrated: instead of dominating, it framed the whiskey’s maturity with savory depth and a hint of honeyed brightness.” Greek oak didn’t overshadow the bourbon’s age—it elevated it, adding warmth, nuance, and a subtle herbal complexity that shifted the latest Widow Jane edition into its own category. “The Vaults 2025 stands apart for that balance—ancient wood meeting long-aged American bourbon, both distinct but harmonious.”
Bottled at a healthy 49.5-percent ABV (99-proof), only 15,672 bottles of Widow Jane The Vaults 2025 are available out in the wild, with a SRP of $250.
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