The bottle: Duke Kentucky Straight Bourbon, $34.99

The back story: John Wayne was the ultimate western film star, an Oscar-winning actor whose pictures, from “How the West Was Won” to “True Grit,” grossed $350-plus million and set a standard that arguably has never been surpassed. But how do you take all that gun-slinging bravado and bottle it in the form of a small-batch whiskey?

That’s the challenge the Wayne family — specifically, Wayne’s youngest, surviving son, Ethan — gave themselves when they decided to launch Duke bourbon. In a sense, this is familiar terrain. After all, plenty of other celebrities, both dead and alive, are attached to booze brands. There’s an Elvis Presley coconut water-flavored vodka. And a Kenny Chesney rum.

But in another sense, the Wayne team wanted to do something different, something with a little more direct connection to the star. “This isn’t a label slap,” says Chris Radomski, a well-known California wine professional who’s partnered with Ethan Wane on Duke bourbon. Fortunately, it wasn’t such a difficult task in that Wayne was a fan of bourbon and he left quite a stash of bottles (some marked, some unmarked) when he passed away in 1979. Ethan Wayne and Radomski were able to use those bottles to get a sense of the kind of whiskey that Duke liked — something “aromatic and flavorful, but that didn’t blow your head off,” as Radomski puts it. And with that profile in mind, the team blended rare batches of Kentucky-sourced bourbon and aged the final mix in heavily charred American oak barrels to create Duke. (The spirit takes its name from the actor’s moniker, but the naming has also turned into something of a controversy, with Duke University trying to block the Wayne family from using “Duke” in connection with the bourbon.)

What we think about it: This is an easy sip of a bourbon — not too sweet and not too spicy, the kind that is clearly intended for a long night of drinking and talking (and drinking and talking). It’s slightly higher in proof (at 88) than the norm, but smooth enough that you’d hardly notice it. Ethan Wayne makes the point that when his father would go off on months-long film shoots, he had to pack a whiskey he could live with — not one that was full of too much character or bite. We indeed imagine it was this kind of whiskey.

How to enjoy it: If you’re a true western tough guy, you’re probably not mixing your whiskey in some multi-ingredient cocktail that calls for lavender syrup or an Italian aperitif. So follow Duke’s example and drink Duke neat — or with a cube or two of ice.

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