This distillery was born from a true American Dream story. Founder, Siddharth “Sid” Dilawri, is a first-generation immigrant from Delhi, India. His parents were entrepreneurs who stumbled into owning retail liquor stores with unique selections “of really cool bourbons, whiskeys or wine, anything. We're like, hey, we have a clientele; why don't we start doing barrel picks?” From there, their connections open the doors for them to begin their sourcing endeavors with the cream of the bourbon crop. They sourced MGP barrels from Heaven Hill and Four Roses.
Lady luck was on their side as they blended and bottled for their retail patrons. It went so well that Sid decided to create his own juice in a new location in the quiet picturesque rolling hills of the Shenandoah Valley, a perfect place to source their grains from local farmers with a water table that outmatches Kentucky’s.
Shortly after hiring a distillery consultant, the consultant left without notice, leaving Sid with new equipment and no one to run it. While some would kick the can and write off the dream as an expensive failure, Sid got up the gumption (and encouragement from his wife) to step up, and run the equipment. His first distilled barrel won double gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Somewhere along the way, their hobby became a thriving American business dream.
“I feel like like the the Force was with us.”
Beyond their fantastic story, RackHouse selected Filibuster for their Whiskey Club because they are one of the few distilleries to tout a single estate production. All of Filibuster’s grains are sourced within four miles of their distillery. This production loop is so close that their mash goes back to feeding local livestock. If that wasn’t enough, their water is said to be superior to Kentucky’s waters, as the Shenandoah limestone possesses an even higher ratio of beneficial minerals. “We only use the limestone water from our live on-site wells…After distilling, the water undergoes an intense filtration process and is then injected back into Shenandoah water tables. Our used grains are also converted into nourishing poultry feed. We are serious about safeguarding the environment for future generations.”
GIFT THIS MONTH'S PLATINUM BOX
When the time came for a career transition, Florida’s hospitality industry came calling for Cohen. His Dutch grandfather, who escaped World War II and settled in Jacksonville because it reminded him of Rotterdam, operated a chain of liquor stores in Florida years ago. Cohen learned about the industry from his family as a child, and worked in fine dining during his early years in Los Angeles.
Also a craft liquor enthusiast, Cohen knew that creating a distillery in Florida’s expanding spirits industry would be his next adventure. His goal was to use lessons gleaned from the film industry as the anchor for a new kind of distillery.
“Filmmaking is highly collaborative. I was used to working in a very collaborative environment. I wanted to do the same thing with distilling,” he said. As he started to put together a team, Cohen focused on one question.
“What if we create a product where all of us together are creating something better than any one of us could create alone?” With partners Scott Kennelly, Trey Mills and Tom Johnson on board, Manifest Distilling was born.
“The concept is manifesting something from nothing,” said Cohen.
Cohen and his partners were clear-eyed about Manifest’s brand identity from day one. They wanted a “clean, contemporary brand,” said Cohen. Everything from the sophisticated labels on each bottle of whiskey, vodka, and gin to the distillery’s minimalist tasting room was designed to evoke a modern, luxurious feel.
The team consciously distanced itself from timeworn allusions to “grandpa's cough medicine,” but Manifest is about more than just clean lines and elevated style. The distillery is Jacksonville’s only full-scale organic distillery. “We choose to maintain a certified organic facility because it supports sustainable agriculture, not because the logo looks great on the bottle,” according to the company website.
Grains are sourced from a North American farm cooperative, and the oranges, grapefruits and lemons Manifest uses in its infused gins and vodkas are locally grown. “We make everything with a sense of place. We rely on ingredients that are grown in Florida to make these products truly unique,” said Cohen in a feature piece for Florida’s official tourism website.
Manifest takes its commitment to American craftsmanship a step further with a hefty investment in distillation equipment made in the United States. (Perhaps as a nod to Cohen’s entertainment industry roots, each of Manifest’s mash tuns and other pieces of distillation equipment are named after Gilligan’s Island characters.)
If transparency is one of the hallmarks of a modern brand, Manifest is setting the bar high. The company addresses its use of neutral spirits sourced from trusted partners in an unusually straightforward way, explaining that its gin and vodka offerings are redistilled on-premises to imbue them with a taste that is uniquely Manifest. The whiskey however, is a different story. Mashed, fermented, distilled, aged, and bottled on-site, Manifest’s award-winning rye-based whiskies are a true point of pride.
After nearly seven years of hard work, Cohen and his partners have brought their vision of an agile, forward-looking brand to life. They cemented a reputation for delivering high-quality spirits, successfully navigated the pandemic, and continued to innovate beyond their original range of bottled spirits. (Although he’s a self-proclaimed “cocktail purist,” Cohen recently led the charge on Manifest’s foray into the exploding ready-to-drink cocktail niche. As a dad of three, he says “the concept of portability is really exciting.”)
Armed with ambition, creativity, and an unyielding commitment to transparency, expect Manifest Distilling to continue making waves in the Florida craft spirits market and beyond. Manifest’s lead distiller Mike Mullis sees a bright future for the brand. “Each batch we do is even better. I can’t wait to see what the next five years bring us.”
Manifest’s typical Straight Rye Whiskey takes a classic approach to a uniquely American spirit. It has the spicy notes that rye brings, but finishes with the tropical smoothness of wheat. Using the best organic North American grains from a co-op of farm, rye is combined with hard red spring wheat to result in a slightly softened approach to Rye Whiskey.
Casks = Aged in American-grown White Oak barrels that are coopered and charred in Avon, MN
Mash Bill = 60% rye grain and 40% whole wheat
ABV = 100 proof
In contrast to the Straight Rye Whiskey, the 100% Rye focuses on the flavor of just the rye grain, which brings forward bold, peppery notes with a balance of darker fruit-like black cherry.
Casks = Aged in American-grown White Oak barrels that are coopered and charred in Avon, MN
Mash Bill = 100% rye grain
ABV = 100 proof
]]>Heath Schneider’s grandfather, Frank Sextro, had one dying wish. He wanted his family to dig up the barrels of whiskey he’d buried near a creek on the family farm during Prohibition.
Sextro buried them under cover of darkness after authorities caught wind of his farm’s illegal whiskey-making operation.
“I absolutely think there’s whiskey out in those fields,” said Schneider.
This might sound like the scandalous tale of an organized crime ring, but the real story is that of an Iowa couple just trying to save their family farm. (It is true that Al Capone allegedly adored the rye whiskey coming out of this particular corner of Iowa..)
In the early 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, Frank and Lorine Sextro were approached by bootleggers hoping to set up covert whiskey-making operations on their farm a mile outside of Templeton, Iowa.
Facing serious financial struggles, Frank and Lorine agreed to let a bootlegger move into their attic in January of 1932. Their new whiskey-distilling roommate slept all day, and secretly made whiskey in the fields at night.
Rich Eggers, whose family knew the Sextros, defends their decision.
“These people were not criminals,” Eggers says. “These were damn good people, and they did it to pay for their farms and pay for their kids. They’d give you the shirt off their back.”
As it turns out, Lorine Sextro took an interest in the whiskey making process, and proved to have quite a knack for it. By May of 1932, she was distilling her own small-batch rye whiskey, now known as Templeton Rye.
The operation continued to grow, and by later that year, the Sextros were producing 300 gallons a day and distributing to Omaha, Denver, and Chicago. Legend has it that authorities were tipped off by fox hunters who stumbled upon a camouflaged whiskey still in the fields.
Fortunately for the Sextros, the federal government’s raid was misdirected at a neighboring farm. The family believes it was around this time that Frank Sextro buried the still along with at least 15 barrels of whiskey. The Sextro family was never caught, and the buried whiskey production equipment remained undisturbed below ground for decades.
In the interim, Rich Eggers came into possession of Lorine Sextro’s original Templeton Rye recipe, and in 2015 he co-founded Iowa Legendary Rye using her handwritten instructions and original distilling process.
After Lorine’s grandson Heath Schneider got involved with Iowa Legendary Rye in 2018, the hunt for buried treasure began.
Jim Peters of Iowa-based Samaritan Detection Services was brought in with a team of dogs to search for the buried contraband. The dogs had spent weeks learning the scent of an unusual training target…chopped up whiskey barrels. Using the instructions passed on by Frank Sextro on his deathbed, the dogs found several likely locations for the family’s long-buried whiskey barrels. With the help of below-ground mapping technology, the team confirmed a promising spot, and the dig began.
To the joy and astonishment of the Iowa Legendary Rye family, the whiskey still thought to be used by Lorine Sextro in 1932 was finally found. Bottles and fragments of charred oak were discovered as well.
“Unearthing the still my grandmother used to bootleg rye during Prohibition is a hugely significant discovery for Iowa Legendary Rye and for Iowa’s bootlegging history,” said Schneider.
While finding the still is a major triumph, Schneider and the team have their sights set on those old barrels of whiskey, hopefully still intact.
“We are still on our treasure hunt for the barrels,” said Max Poland, master distiller and director of distillery operations at Iowa Legendary Rye. “It is still an active farm, so it is hard to get in to hunt in between freezing and thawing seasons. It is still a work in progress on finding them.”
Heath Schneider is optimistic.
“Being able to find just one of the 15 barrels buried nearly 90 years ago intact would be a game-changer,” Schneider said. “Just three molecules from the barrel can produce the exact same yeast that Grandma Sextro used.”
“We’re 95 percent of the way to making our rye exactly like she used to. Having that yeast is the missing link. With it, we’d be able to make Iowa Legendary Rye exactly like she made it in the 1930s.”
This month, RackHouse is featuring two Sextro Rye whiskeys.
This Prohibition-era rye is high-proof rye, aged in freshly charred white oak barrels. The char from the newly fired white oak leads to an intricately flavored, smooth-tasting Black label high-proof new-made American rye whose taste is defined with every sip.
Prohibition-era recipe, single barrel
ABV = 80 proof
Iowa Legendary Rye’s Red Label – Private Reserve twice barreled rye is amazingly smooth and slightly sweet due to our blending of 100 percent rye in a traditional copper pot still. Served over ice or in your favorite mixed drink or cocktail, this surprisingly simple cocktail offers something new.
Prohibition-era recipe
ABV = 80 proof
]]>The least offensive definition for the term “bastard” means something or someone that is of a “mysterious origin.” That’s exactly what the guys with the Florida Craft Spirits Association were going for in creating the “Florida Bastard,” a limited edition whiskey blend that tells the story of the incredible distillers across the state.
“If you’ve been in Florida long enough, you’ve heard of the ‘Florida man’ stories,” explained Matt Allen, co-founder of Dark Door Distilling and treasurer of the Florida Craft Spirits Association. “We started out building it off of that.”
“Then we decided, let's not go with Florida man but Florida bastard. A true bastard for me means being from multiple different sources, which is how this process evolved,” added David Cohen, founder of Manifest Distilling and president of the Florida Craft Spirits Association. “I think we had about 12 submissions for this project. We ended up choosing eight. And the question was ‘how do you make different liquids kind of come together?’ Obviously it’s not going to work perfectly, but it’s a fine whiskey.”
Like all legendary bastards, the whiskey was born from multiple homes ranging from Amelia Island to Bradenton and points in between. The limited edition Florida Bastard is the first of its kind and was sourced entirely from eight Florida craft distilleries including St. Augustine Distillery, St. Petersburg Distillery, Dark Door Distilling, Manifest Distilling, Marlin and Barrel Distillery, Loggerhead Distillery, Kozuba & Sons Distillery, and Loaded Cannon Distilled Spirits. It contains a blend of straight bourbon, straight rye whiskey, straight rye finished in maple syrup barrels, and American single malt. The whiskeys range in age from one year with rapid aging technology to conventionally aged seven year.
“With such a variety of different whiskies, we had to marry together something good,” said Allen. “We just went to town trying to get a good blend and we did.”
And as an added bonus, the proceeds from the Florida Bastard bottle will benefit the Florida Craft Spirits Association and their efforts to support the craft spirits industry.
“We figured we could make the bottles part of a fundraiser where all the money goes back to the association. It’s not benefiting anyone’s distilleries. It’s strictly to promote craft spirits,” said Allen.
“We’re all small businesses and locally owned. A lot of our money goes toward educating the consumer on what craft producers and local distillers do, and then advocating for ourselves at the state and federal level. Often times we go up against much larger companies whether it’s retailers and other large brands who have different priorities than we will,” added Cohen.
Teaming up with RackHouse Whiskey Club to distribute the state’s first whiskey blend will allow whiskey enthusiasts nationwide to access the finely crafted blend.
“We are thrilled to make the Florida Bastard available to a wider audience and we couldn’t have a better partner for this initial release,” said Cohen. “We look forward to getting this unique, one-of-a-kind whiskey out to whiskey enthusiasts across the U.S.”
“RackHouse has always strived to support the craft distilling industry by telling the stories behind the brand,” said Dannie Strable, founder and CEO of RackHouse Whiskey Club. “We love seeing distilleries that work together and are honored to support the Florida Craft Spirits Association and collaborated release of Florida Bastard Whiskey.”
“We could never recreate this whiskey even if we wanted to,” said Allen. “It’s truly a collector’s item.”
“I would be curious how many distilleries have their own bastards,” said Cohen. “Like what if you released a bastard series and it was basically every distiller releasing a product that was kind of an accident. What do you do with it?”
Cohen might be onto something. But for now, get the Florida Bastard while supplies last. Bottles are $85 and will begin to ship mid-December nationwide excluding West Virginia, Utah, North Carolina, Mississippi, Hawaii, and Alaska.
All sales of Florida Bastard will go back to the association to continue to promote the association.
About Florida Craft Spirits Association
The Florida Craft Spirits Association (FCSA), was established to serve as the voice for the Florida handcrafted distilled spirits industry. The goals of the FCSA are to grow our community, represent our views and interests before policymakers, and promote awareness of our industry across the state of Florida. For more information, visit floridacraftspirits.org and via Facebook or Instagram @floridacraftspirits.
]]>Treaty Oak Distilling’s founder Daniel Barnes is not afraid to let his staff get creative. “Daniel gives us a lot of free reign to do experiments,” says General Manager Tony Gonzalez.
This exploration includes ingredient selection, distilling practices, and unusual finishing techniques like burying barrels underground. The Treaty Oak team keeps what works and lets go of the rest, forging ahead confidently as they have throughout their varied careers.
The staff includes quite a cast of characters, including folks that have “searched for oil, designed buildings, cooked over campfires, served in the military, created art, played rock and roll,” according to Treaty Oak’s website.
“We strive to strike the perfect balance between heritage and innovation. Our willingness to be different based on knowledge and expertise is what sets us apart,” says Barnes.
No stranger to the hospitality industry as the son of restaurant owners and a trained sommelier, Barnes wasted no time opening his own distillery after Texas made it legal to do so in the early 2000s.
Treaty Oak was just the fourth legal distillery to open in the state, and the company has now successfully expanded to a sprawling 28-acre ranch 45 minutes west of Austin. The historic property has roots in the wild pioneer days of the Texas frontier, and it retains an adventurous charm to this day.
Sitting in the shade of ancient oak trees, enjoying a classic barbecue dish, and gazing out over Texas Hill Country, you might forget that you are, in fact, surrounded by a large-scale distilling operation. That feeling of warmth and relaxation is by design.
Treaty Oak wants you to feel like part of the family, and the whole ranch is set up to make you feel at home.
How many distilleries out there can boast regular kid-friendly events, complete with hay rides, games, and s’mores by the bonfire? Even dogs are welcome to join the fun at Treaty Oak.
At their annual Kite Festival, the distillery hosts up to 7,000 people who come to enjoy Texas barbecue, sample craft spirits, and of course, fly kites.
Beyond the distillery itself, the ranch includes a cocktail lab, food truck, live music stage, rickhouse for barrel storage, and Alice’s restaurant, named after the company’s beloved matriarch.
Treaty Oak’s whiskey lineup includes grain-to-glass whiskey and bourbon, a small-batch rye, and several ready-to-drink craft cocktails.
“Ghost Hill Bourbon Whiskey is our grain-to-glass bourbon whiskey. This is a Texas bourbon whiskey through and through. It’s meant to be enjoyed neat or on the rocks to appreciate the flavor of the whiskey itself as an experience,” says Distillery Operations Manager Jason Stein.
As part of its commitment to “distilling disruptive ideas,” Treaty Oak partners with Kelvin Cooperage, a Kentucky barrel maker that is always up for experimentation.
According to Treaty Oak, “one of the defining points of their process is that they toast the barrel before they char, creating a better caramelization of the oak.”
The unique partnerships don’t end there. Treaty Oak’s operation has the unusual distinction of hosting an on-site grain mill. Barton Springs Mill, led by a James Beard-award winning miller, is a leader in the heirloom grain movement and a key driver in the creation of Treaty Oak’s innovative flavor profiles.
When it comes to sustainability, the staff works hard to keep a lot of balls in the air. The team oversees initiatives that reduce water and energy use, protect the land, and encourage local product sourcing. Ninety percent of Treaty Oak’s grains are grown by Texas farmers using sustainable practices, and spent grain is turned into livestock feed, compost, or dog treats. The company dramatically reduces its carbon footprint by milling grains on-site, which is a major point of pride.
It’s a lot to manage, but there’s no plan to stop anytime soon..
A goal for the company is to continue to integrate their processes into those nature has established in terms of water, energy, and waste. Treaty Oak believes it is possible to blend economy with ecology in the pursuit of the curious.
If you ever find yourself in Texas Hill Country, Founder Daniel Barnes would love to welcome you to a place he hopes will feel like home. Enjoy some Texas barbecue, kick your heels up to a bluegrass band, tour the inner workings of the distillery, and by all means, accept Treaty Oak’s invitation to “drink like you give a damn” by sampling some of their mouth-watering Texas whiskey.
“You have to experience it to really appreciate how much we have and how cool everything is out here,” says Stein.
This month, RackHouse is featuring two Treaty Oak Distillery bourbon whiskeys.
With an inviting aroma of vanilla sugar cookies and maple syrup, The Day Drinker's silky texture carries notes of kettle corn, wheat, and mild nutmeg and cinnamon. Where most aged whiskeys boast rich wood sugars and complex flavors brought on by the charred barrel, this young 1 year aged bourbon features the Texas corn and wheat that makes this juice so special.
Age = at least 12 months
Casks = Aged under the hot Texas sun in first use American white oak char 3 barrels
Mash Bill = 57% corn, 32% wheat, 11% barley
ABV = 80 proof
Named after Treaty Oak's 28-acre ranch home in Dripping Springs, Texas, Ghost Hill Texas Bourbon is an award-winning whiskey made with local heirloom grains from Barton Springs Mill. A genuine grain-to-glass bourbon, it is mashed, fermented, distilled, barreled, aged 2 years and bottled on-site at their distillery. Ghost Hill is a bourbon born of years of purposeful experimentation.
Age = at least 12 months
Casks = Aged under the hot Texas sun in first use American white oak char 3 barrels
Mash Bill = 57% corn, 32% wheat, 11% barley
ABV = 95 proof
]]>“Knock if you dare.” This expression, featured on the homepage of Tampa, Florida’s Dark Door Spirits, is a playful allusion to a brand personality that definitely has some edge.
But according to CEO Matt Allen, “once you come inside, it’s all about the hospitality.” Understanding the nuances of the hospitality world helped Allen and his co-founder Brandon Marshall (whose first gig was a dishwasher at an all-you-can eat seafood restaurant) navigate the challenges of launching a craft distillery and keeping it afloat as COVID-19 destabilized the industry.
Drawing inspiration from the old stills that Marshall’s family found among his grandfather’s belongings after he passed, the duo bootstrapped their way to success by creating a grain-to-glass distillery with a style all its own.
“What we’re after are just awesome flavors. We’re not trying to recreate Kentucky bourbon,” says Allen.
With a laboratory onsite, Dark Door experiments with innovative ingredients to create spirits that fall outside of typical flavor profiles. It’s part of the company’s mystique, and its founders are explicit about their desire to attract folks looking for something different.
Dark Door describes its first whiskey release, Spirit of IPA, as a “whiskey spirit with full hop notes upfront, hints of vanilla, followed by the sweet dried fruit taste characteristic of a classic corn whiskey.” Wine X magazine’s take on this unique libation is that it “tastes like a whiskey going down, and an IPA when you exhale.”
When it comes to gin, says Allen, it’s all about the flavor. “We use all real botanicals. We don’t use any essential oils in our gin. We’re not out to make a picture perfect clear gin, we want flavor. That’s where it’s at for us.”
While Dark Door’s offerings have expanded as the distillery grows and leans into collaborations with local breweries, Allen still feels anchored to the company’s raison d'état.
“We love making whiskey and gin. That’s what we set out to make. There’s a lot of people making rum in Florida because everyone thinks they’re a pirate down here.”
If you’re looking for the sunny, rum-soaked vibe of Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, Dark Door is not the destination for you. But if you decide to darken the door of this expansive distillery, you will experience both its audacious handcrafted spirits and its strong commitment to Tampa Bay. Dark Door seeks out opportunities to host art shows, live music, and comedy events, and pays homage to local brewers through frequent collaborations.
Allen and Marshall have built an award-winning craft distillery that supports the community, blazes its own trail, and isn’t afraid to take risks. It may have a dark edge, but this place has a lot of heart. And “if you dare” to enter, you’ll find that it’s also a damn good time.
This month, RackHouse is featuring two Dark Door whiskeys.
The first Barrel pick RackHouse has done. All members get an exclusive Barrel pick from barrel # 53-0051 at Dark Door Distillery.
Notes from our Founder, Dannie Strable: Finished on Oak chips and stored in oak barrels, your barrel select bottle is dark amber with a dry nose with hints of vanilla and mint. Take a sip and you get an initital spice that mellows, becomes creamy, full bodied, and lingers with oak.
Our Spirit of the Oak has a rich complex nose of vanilla, molasses, and toffee. You will find it pleasantly sweet with hints of brown sugar, dark fruit and cinnamon. From the first sip to the last drop, you will enjoy the rich character with a remarkably smooth finish.
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club by October 31, 2022 to try some for yourself.
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Canadian Whisky (spelled without the “e”) is popular. In 2021, 19.4 million cases of Canadian Whisky were sold in the US, generating nearly $2.5 billion in revenue for distillers, according to the Distilled Spirits Council.
Since we launched RackHouse Whiskey Club, we’ve given a platform to independent craft distillers from around the US and provided an opportunity for our members to try their limited release whiskey. We figured now was a good time to take a look at our neighbors to the north to see what the fuss is all aboot.
We’re always looking for original stories, interesting people and innovative products. When Mountain Pass Distillery reached out saying they’re yet to distribute any of their products this side of the border, we were in.
Located in northern Alberta, Mountain Pass sets out to be the true taste of the Canadian north. The two founders, Nathan Flim and Vince Bruno, were inspired by the Rocky Mountains and by the Boreal Forests of their home province.
“We were fly fishing and in the backcountry in an area called Nordegg. We were standing in the water and the creative juices were flowing while surrounded by mountains and the fresh air,” Vince told us. “We were standing there saying this entire entity is just too beautiful to not connect to so as spirits drinkers, we got into the spirits game.”
They set about creating a product that represents their region.
“We’re taking what we love as Canada as a whole and what Canada brings to the world like our fresh water, our fresh air and then our love for spirits and our love for whiskey and blending them together to give somebody a new product and something that just really isn't out there right now,” Vince explained. “This is a Canadian product by Canadians.”
To get a light body feel, they bring their ABV down to 40% by using glacier meltwater from the Alpine region of the Canadian Rocky Mountains to cut their whisky. It's produced from a mash bill that is 100% corn and is a blend of four- to six-year-old whisky aged in former bourbon casks.
“Our cherry on top is using fresh Canadian water,” Vince said. “This isn't just some city water, we're blending it with what creates the experience. When you look at it, you're going to think Canadian mountains and that's what we want to bring.”
After a few years experimenting with different barrel releases, Mountain Pass launched in January of 2022.
“The main focus and goal is to make Mountain Pass one of the household names when it comes down to Canadian whisky,” Vince said “We believe in the product and believe the products will speak for themselves.”
RackHouse Whiskey Club members who subscribe in May and June, 2022 will receive a bottle of their Glacier and Bonfire whiskies. Glacier is available in the US for the first time and Bonfire is the first time it’s being released anywhere.
“Everybody who is part of RackHouse Whiskey Club is extremely lucky as Bonfire is not even launched yet in Canada,” Vince explained. “You guys are the first group that we've done our samples and testing and will be first to get the bottles.”
There you are, folks. A double American exclusive. Here’s our chance to try some Mountain Pass Canadian Glacier Whisky for the very first in America and some Bonfire Whisky for the first time anywhere, ever!
Mountain Pass is the whisky of the Canadian North, a taste of its beautiful land. Their whisky pays homage to the North by using glacier water sourced from the Alpine region of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
Age = 4 to 6 years
Casks = Ex-Bourbon
Mash Bill = 100% corn
ABV = 40% (80 proof)
Bonfire has the same identity and mash bill as Mountain Pass Glacier except they blend it with local honey. Both are best served cold, like a Canadian winter.
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club any time in May or June, 2022 to receive your box.
]]>Forget the Kentucky Bourbon Trail (at least for three minutes), we’re all about the Empire Rye Trail. We traveled to upstate New York and one of the oldest cities in America to check out one of the go-to spots on the trail, Albany Distilling Co.
Nestled in between the Adirondacks and the Catskill Mountains, Albany was once one of the largest cities in America. And up until Prohibition, New York was also said to have grown around 90 percent of all the rye in the country. In that tradition, an effort in the past decade has been underway to establish a distinct whiskey style for the state that gives a nod to its rye whiskey-making heritage.
One of the distilleries leading the pack is Albany Distilling Co.
“The nice part about New York especially is that we grow some of the best rye in the world. It grows really well here and it's plentiful,” Albany Distilling Co. COO Rick Saccone told us. “To rival the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, it was logical for us as a collective to create the Empire Rye Trail. You can come to New York, and you can go and visit 20 different distilleries that are all making Empire Rye.”
Founded in 2011, Albany Distilling Co. is the city’s first legal distillery since Prohibition. Using locally sourced ingredients, that’s not where the local tie ends. Their series of whiskeys are named after the 1983 Pulitzer winning novel, Ironweed. Fittingly, it’s set during the Great Depression and the lead character, Francis Phelan, is portrayed as a boozy vagrant originally from Albany. The film adaptation starred Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.
“It’s a really important part of Albany’s cultural history,” CEO John Curtin explained to us.
“What's really cool about New York is that it gets really cold and it gets really hot so that big swing in temperature change is going to allow a lot of expansion and a lot of contraction,” Rick said. “As our whiskeys age for four years in a barrel, that means there’s four years in and out of that wood, and four years of pulling caramelization from the barrel. Our climate in our opinion is perfect. It's not too dry, it's not too moist. That big temperature swing is really going to allow a real rapid aging.”
It’s pretty common for most ryes to have really high rye content with mash bills made up of 95% rye. For it to be considered an Empire Rye though, that rye content has to be 75%.
“Our rye whiskey, because it's not 95% but it's 75%, we’re backing off that spice a little bit,” Rick told us. “The reason we chose 25% malted wheat for our Empire Rye is because it’s a soft grain. Rye has spice — it’s pepper, cinnamon, and cloves. We get pushback that rye is too spicy for some customers. Because our rye is balanced with wheat, they play off each other well so you get the interesting flavors but it’s not going to overwhelm you. It’s not intimidating and it’s an easy rye to drink.”
75% rye, 25% malted wheat
60% corn, 25% rye, 15% malted barley
The production of both bourbon and rye are virtually identical: 100 whole grain mashed, fermented, distilled, and placed in brand new charred American white oak barrels. It is the ingredients that distinguish them. Bourbon is made from mostly corn, while rye is made with mostly rye; they source both grains from New York State. Corn gives bourbon its distinctive sweet flavor and notes of dried fruit, while rye makes a drier, spicier whiskey.
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club by April 10, 2022 to try some.
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There was one problem when Jason Barrett was faced with taking over the family button manufacturing business and it led to a whiskey distillery being born.
Here’s how the story goes: Jason's Great Grandfather started a button manufacturing business in Rochester, New York that was world renowned. It’s said that Jason would have been in line to take over the family business, except for one thing — he is color blind. Selling only black buttons wasn’t an option so he decided instead of making black buttons he would honor the values of hard work, entrepreneurship, and community that his grandfather taught him by pouring them into his passion for crafting spirits.
And so Black Button Distilling was born.
According to a 2020 economic impact study, New York is the second largest state in terms of distillers in the country – 186 and counting. Black Button Distilling is Rochester’s first grain-to-glass distillery in the city since prohibition.
“What's nice about Rochester, New York is that our water here in the city limits comes from Hemlock Lake, which has a natural limestone shelf in it,” Jeff Fairbrother, Black Button Head Distiller told us. “It’s much like the water you would expect from Kentucky so it's very clean.”
Another plus about being based in New York, the state has a good climate to age whiskey with huge temperature swings in the 30 to 40 degree range, which helps push the whiskey into the barrel, Jeff told us.
While 95% of their ingredients come from within 45 miles, what sets Black Button apart is its distillery method.
“We have a hybrid column pot distillation, which is very unique and what I think gives us a lot of character,” Jeff pointed out to us. “Instead of just doing a pot distillation, we also utilize the whiskey column as well.”
We’re proud to be partnering with Black Button to feature a whiskey that’s a tasting room exclusive. It’s never been shipped before.
“Our Pre-Prohibition Bourbon is a different take on our flagship bourbon,” Jeff explained. “What we wanted to do is follow the style of that era. We only make about 400 bottles every year. We select three barrels that are ready to blend at that time.”
Also in the box is their Bourbon Cream, which starts out as locally made cream and has bourbon added to it.
80% corn, 10% rye and 10% malted barley.
Aged four years and bottled at a 92 Proof.
"It boasts the same strength as a whiskey crafted 100-plus years ago. It is intended to be a little rough around the edges and bold on the nose, while finishing smoothly."
Winner of Gold at the Concours International de Lyon competition and the John Barleycorn Awards.
“Our Bourbon Cream is a love letter to New York State agriculture and dairy. Our small-batch bourbon meets farm fresh New York State cream and creates a warmer, more luxurious experience than an Irish Cream can.”
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club by Feb. 10, 2022 to try some for yourself.
]]>Have you ever wondered why whiskey is aged in oak wooden barrels? It’s not originally because of the flavor.
An Ohio distillery contends it was simply because barrels were the storage device of the day. The flavor the whiskey got was merely a consequence.
“We’ve used oak barrels not because somebody was prescient enough to say, ‘gee, that'll give it a great flavor,’ even though it does, but because oak held liquid,” Tom Lix, founder and CEO of Cleveland Whiskey told us. “They built a barrel for storage purposes for carrying things. You've got a bulge in the middle of a barrel so you can roll it down a dirt road or up onto a ramp onto a ship. The whiskey industry has been continuing to do that.”
What if you wanted to mature your whiskey with something other than oak?
“Wooden barrels give us a great flavor and 68% of flavor in a whiskey comes from that interaction with the woods,” Tom told us. “But my question was, what about the other woods like black cherry, walnut, hickory and apple and all the fruit woods you could get some amazing flavors out of?”
The problem is you can't build barrels out of those woods. They’d leak like a sieve. You could put those woods inside of oak barrels but the flavors are so aggressive that it overpowers the spirit, Tom explained.
“What we do instead of using those barrels is to use pressure-capable stainless steel tanks,” Tom said. “We cut up the woods and then we add those woods to the young spirits in those stainless steel containers and apply pressure differences — high pressure, low pressure, high pressure, low pressure — it's almost like it squeezes it like a sponge in a bucket of water.”
Cleveland Whiskey is a technology company that happens to make whiskey.
“We're different from a traditional craft distillery, we're really more of a technology company,” Tom said.
The distillery is even located within a manufacturing and technology incubator, MAGNET. They’ve been able to lean on the talent within that program to develop their proprietary process to age whiskey using woods like black cherry, apple and sugar maple.
But what about the naysayers?
“Because we use technology, we’re sometimes considered sort of heretic to this business and that maybe what we're doing is sacrilege. We've had our share of traditionalists say ‘oh, what you're doing, it can't really work well,’” Tom explained. “We've won all these medals.”
They’ve also done thousands of blind taste tests comparing it to a similar well-known whiskey that’s been aged for 10 years. Cleveland Whiskey wins out 54% of the time.
President Obama even toured the distillery while in office.
“There’s a new and quicker way to make whiskey,” President Obama told reporters. “We’re going to have to taste test it as supposedly it’s pretty good.”
Cleveland Whiskey’s technology and process means they’re able to make a finished whiskey in a fraction of the time. It also means they don’t need to store barrels in a rackhouse, which had us worried for our name!
But as we sipped on their double gold award winning Wheat Penny 1958 Bourbon, we didn’t mind that our name was under threat. We were tasting the future. We would have had no idea it took mere days to age compared to years if Tom hadn’t just told us.
“My best advice is to sign up for RackHouse Whiskey Club so you can actually try our flavored whiskey,” Tom said. We’ll toast to that!
Cleveland Whiskey’s Wheat Penny 1958 Bourbon is their first wheated bourbon and is finished with black cherry and toasted oak. Why 1958? 1958 was the last year of the wheat penny.
Mash Bill: 51% Corn, 45% Wheat, 4% Malt
Winner of a platinum SIP Award and double gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, this bourbon is unique and well-rounded with light flavor from the cherry wood.
Mash Bill: 75% Corn 21% Rye 4% Malted Barley
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club by Dec. 10 to get your box featuring Cleveland Whiskey.
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Bourbon from Colorado rocks! Sorry, we couldn't help ourselves. It's not the first time we have ventured toward the Rockies in search of a top notch tipple with a cool story. There's a reason for that too. It's a part of the world that lends itself well to creating fine bourbon.
Take Molly Brown Spirits, which has anchored itself on the edge of Downtown Denver. They’re taking grain-to-glass to new levels with a pioneering and do-it-yourself spirit.
With over 300 days of sunshine a year, Colorado has the perfect conditions to make top notch bourbon.
“We get the snow all winter long on the Rocky Mountains just behind us,” Justin Lee, CEO and Head Distiller told us. “That melts to provide the water that feeds the grain, to make our ferment and also the water that we use to add to the bourbon when we proof it down from our barrels.”
“We take whole grain straight out of Loveland right up the road. We mill it up ourselves, we cook it, ferment it, distill it, put it in brand new American 53 gallon charred barrels and out pops beautiful bourbon,” Justin added. “Our bourbon is 100% grain-to-glass. We do everything here except for growing the grain ourselves.”
That includes building the stills and tasting room.
“Everything at Molly Brown distillery is handcrafted from the equipment in the back to the bourbon to our actual tasting room,” Justin said. “Our hands have made every single thing involved here.”
Even the scar on Justin’s face is a war wound from a misadventure with an angle grinder while making the still.
We checked out where Molly Brown gets their grains and met up with Todd Olander with Root Shoot Malting who explained their process.
“Grain-to-glass spirits is more than just a tagline. It's our way of life,” Told explained to us. “We grow the best grains in Colorado, if not the country. With those grains, you can produce some of the best whiskey and that's why we've chosen to work with Molly Brown Spirits.”
And what about the name? Molly Brown is a Denver icon having survived the sinking of the Titanic to go on to become a well known socialite and philanthropist.
“We chose Molly Brown to pay tribute to all the strong women in our lives, our wives, our mothers, our grandmothers,” Jon Jachimiec, a co-owner of Molly Brown Spirits explained to us. “And there’s no better way of doing that by using the name Molly Brown.”
“There are plenty of women that enjoy bourbon and whiskey but there's not a lot of females in the branding of whiskey. It's all a boys club — Jim, Jack and Ezra. There's no ladies,” Justin added. “We thought it's time to bring a lady into the mix. And what better woman from Colorado than Molly Brown.”
So what about their bourbon — is it any good? Well, we had to find out for ourselves. They make two types of bourbon — their standard and their high rye bourbon.
“Typically, bourbons are made from 90 to 95% corn. The problem that we see with that is that corn doesn't have a whole lot of flavor to it. At Molly Brown, we like flavor in our bourbon,” Justin said while sipping a glass. "We make a High Rye Bourbon that's made with the bare minimum amount of corn at 51%, there’s 35% rye and the remainder is malted barley. It starts out as a bourbon on the front of your palate but as you roll it over your palate actually turns it into a rye so you get the spiciness of the rye and the complex flavor of the rye."
Two whiskeys for the price of one? Sign us up!
40%
75% Corn / 18% Rye / 7% Malted Barley
Each small batch of Molly Brown Bourbon begins with their signature, 3-grain blend of 75% Corn, 18% Rye, and 7% Malted Barley. These flavors are melded together by their meticulous on-the-grain distillation process and then it’s aged in-house in 53-gallon new American Charred Oak Barrels. The result is a beautifully balanced Bourbon with a familiar corn sweetness up front followed by subtle spice and complexity derived from the rye and barley as it rolls over the tongue.
45%
51% Corn / 35% Rye / 14% Malted Barley
Each small batch of Molly Brown Bourbon begins with their bold, 3-grain blend of 51% Corn, 35% Rye, and 14% Malted Barley. These flavors go through the same meticulous on-the-grain distillation process and are then aged in-house in 53-gallon new American Charred Oak Barrels. The bold flavors of Colorado Rye are front and center as the initial sweetness of corn gives way to delicious cinnamon and pepper flavors that can only come from rye grown in the Colorado sunshine.
Not already a member? Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club to try some Molly Brown Spirits in our upcoming box being shipped in October.
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Phil Brandon hit a fork in the road in 2010. The wake of the Great Recession was in full force and he had just been made redundant. He did something that very few people would do. He decided to cash out his retirement savings and invest it to build a distillery. He took his engineering degree and applied it to his passion for whiskey.
Thus, Rock Town Distillery was born — Arkansas’ first legal distillery to open since Prohibition.
“I put all my chips in the middle of the table and rolled the dice,” Phil told us.
Born and raised in Little Rock, Phil is a fifth generation Arkansan. He wanted his distillery to reflect its sense of place, much in the way distillery names in Scotland often reflect their surroundings — glen meaning hill for example — so landed on Rock Town named after its locale, Little Rock.
“When I started out I was looking around and there were really no distilleries in Arkansas, which didn’t make sense to me,” said Phil Brandon, Founder and Head Distiller of Rock Town Distillery. “We have great water, great local grains — we grow corn and wheat in Arkansas, we have a great climate and we’re virtually horizontal to Jack Daniels and just a little bit south of Kentucky, so why not Arkansas? It turned out I could be the first.”
As a true grain-to-glass distillery, they not only use local grain, but also mill it onsite themselves.
“We’re makers, not fakers,” Phil told us.
In 2017, Phil spearheaded a new state law which meant they could sell cocktails at their distillery. Their space on the edge of downtown Little Rock has become a busy spot that attracts locals and visitors alike. Adorning the walls are images of celebrities to have stopped by including the Clintons. The main draw? Award winning whiskey!
Among their double golds, and 96 and 95 ratings, the most significant accomplishment was being named the US Micro Whiskey of the year by the revered Jim Murray Whiskey Bible.
“We’ve been lucky to win major significant awards for our whiskey,” Phil told us. “It’s been a passion and it shows.”
What does 9% difference in a mash bill really do? The two bourbons being featured in our August box, as part of Rock Town Distillery’s flavor grain series, really illustrates it.
“Where does the flavor of whiskey come from? Is it in the grain, or is it in the barrel or is it the water, or what is it?” Phil asked us. “Our Chocolate Malt Straight Bourbon Whiskey and Golden Promise Straight Bourbon Whiskey is an example showing you that just 9% of the mash bill can take two whiskeys in completely different directions.”
Mash bill: 82% Corn, 9% Chocolate Malt, 9% Malted Barley.
Rock Town Chocolate Malt Straight Bourbon Whiskey is a premium small batch bourbon whiskey distilled, aged and bottled at their distillery in Little Rock, Arkansas. Distilled from a mash of Arkansas grown corn, Chocolate Malt and malted barley.
The Chocolate Malt is a dark brewers malt that is used to malt stouts and porters. It adds distinct roasted coffee notes along with bittersweet dark chocolate undertones.
Mash bill: 82% Corn, 9% Golden Promise Malt, 9% Malted Barley.
Rock Town Golden Promise Straight Bourbon Whiskey is a premium small batch bourbon whiskey distilled, aged and bottled at their distillery in Little Rock, Arkansas. Distilled from a mash of Arkansas grown corn, Golden Promise Malt and malted barley.
Golden Promise Malt is a heritage malt from the UK that is used in many famous Scotch whiskies. It adds a honeyed sweetness to the whiskey along with an oily creaminess.
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If you were to try a whiskey that incorporates the spirit and philosophy of Montana, your best bet would be to start with Whistling Andy Distillery.
Located in Bigfork, Whistling Andy is the state’s oldest operating distillery in Montana. It’s named after owner Brian Anderson’s father who got the “whistling” nickname while serving in the military.
“Our last name is Anderson. Everybody called him Andy and he was whistling his entire life!” Brian joked to us. “He was a craftsman in every way shape and form. He built our house from the ground up and just did everything with his hands. He loved playing around and tinkering with stuff. It’s where I got that passion for it.”
Whistling Andy opened New Year’s Day in 2010. For the first two and half years, Brian slept at the distillery five nights out of seven to really figure out how to craft the best whiskey he could.
“I wish my Dad would have been able to see it but he passed away a few years before we started the project. I wanted to do a little feature for him.”
The former geo-hydrologist — a rocks and water science geek — has access to municipal water that’s untreated. It’s fed from Glacier National Park, which crosses into Canada, into the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi — Flathead Lake.
“It’s really beautiful water for fermentations. We have really high calcium and magnesium but low iron,” Brian explained. “Yeast doesn’t really like iron but loves all those other minerals so we’ve never had to buffer our pH for any of our mashes. We’ve ended up with really awesome water out of the gate.”
For more than a decade, they’ve been honing their craft to the delight of awards judges and fans from as far away as Japan and Taiwan. They’ve joined state trade mission promoting not just their whiskey but Montana too, telling the story of Montana through their spirits.
“I think Montana is more of a philosophy. You can pretty much do whatever you want. As long as you’re a decent person and you try really hard, there’s really no limitations or restrictions and that’s something I absolutely love,” Brian explained. “Community here is incredibly strong. It’s a beautiful place to live.”
They were the first to launch a bourbon that was all made in Montana. We’re excited to be offering two bottles of their whiskey in our next box, which ships the week of June 14, 2021. Not a member? Sign up here to get your box.
Their Straight Bourbon Whiskey has a lower corn component than most bourbons on the market. Their mash bill is 60% corn, 17.5% barley, 17.5% wheat and 5% rye. Aged for 3-4 years, expect a well balanced and nuanced sipper. It recently won the Gold Medal from SIP Northwest, beating out all other Bourbons from Oregon, Washington State, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
Harvest Select Whiskey features a unique flavor profile created by taking a standard American mash bill and flipping it. Their Harvest Select Whiskey is 40% barley, 40% wheat, 15% corn and 5% Rye. It results in a whiskey that’s softer and more delicate than typical American Whiskeys. Aged for 3 years in 53-gallon American oak casks that are heavily toasted and charred to medium, this whiskey has developed a cult following with bartenders nationwide.
It’s not often you meet an organic farmer with a story as interesting as Christian Myrah’s. He went from flying fighter jets for the US Navy to driving tractors in small town Minnesota. And for the last five years or so, he’s been turning his farm produce into whiskey. Award winning at that.
“Tractor’s don’t go as fast as F-18s but the lifestyle is pretty good,” Christian told us. “As a fighter pilot I learned how to drink whiskey. And that qualified me to come back and make whiskey, right?!”
The former combat fighter pilot is making organic, small-batch whiskey and bourbon planted, tended, milled and distilled at RockFilter Distillery in Spring Grove, Minnesota — a town which began life as the first Norwegian settlement in the state.
The distillery is two miles away from where Christian grows the organic grains. It’s also down the road from the oldest water powered mill in Minnesota, Schech Mill, which still uses the original stones imported from France. The mill has been in operation since 1876 and for the last several years has been grinding Christian’s grains.
“I think it’s all about the process and how we treat the land and the soil and everything from start to finish. From farm to distillery, we literally control the process from the time the seed goes into the ground to the time it goes into the bottle,” Christian said.
Before opening the distillery, Christian went from working in a combat zone to sitting alone on his tractor. He didn’t miss getting shot at, but he did miss the fellowship.
“Our brand and what we’re all about is the camaraderie and the storytelling. You can see that in our bottles. They’re kind of like a story right there,” Christian said. “I went from fighter jet tailhooks to sheep hooks. Instead of catching cables on aircraft carriers, I use shepherd hooks to catch sheep. I’m not going to tell you what I do when I catch the sheep!”
Currently, RockFilter is only distributed within Minnesota.
“RackHouse Whiskey Club is a unique way to try some RockFIlter whiskey and have it delivered to your doorstep,” Christian helpfully reminded us.
This is an homage to Christian’s great, great-grandfather who, in the winter of 1856, split 10,000 oak fence rails by hand for a penny a piece, making himself a tidy $100 in the process. It’s a unique mash bill made up of 55% corn and 45% triticale, a grain developed in Scotland in the 19th century. It’s a cross between rye and wheat. Expect a luscious rye-like peppery bourbon, with the more delicate and soft finish of a traditional wheated bourbon.
This is one you won’t find in liquor stores anywhere in the country. It’s made from Ohio blue clarage corn, a quarter of which is blackened with a blow torch, black barley and hulless oats.
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club by April 10, 2021 to get this box.
]]>A man by the name of George Hoover is told he can no longer sell his whiskey in Fort Dodge, Kansas — a settlement setup to protect wagon travelers navigating the American West. Colonel Richard Dodge thought too much whiskey was being consumed by his soldiers so he outlawed it and banished sales within five miles.
So, Hoover went five miles to the edge of Fort Dodge’s reservation by counting the rotations of his wagon wheel. There, he set up shop and so Dodge City, Kansas was born from a barrel.
Cowboys pushing longhorns up from Texas would make it to Dodge City and be welcomed with whiskey by the ladle. Saloons flourished and when some of the gunslinging cowboys would get too rowdy, they’d end up dead. Boot Hill looking over the town was the spot they would get buried. Dodge City soon got a reputation for being a violent and dangerous outpost.
“If you met your unfortunate demise in the 1870s and nobody knew who you were, this was the location of the burial ground,” Boot Hill Distillery’s Lee Griffith told us. “They were buried in shallow graves where the boots would potentially stick out of the ground. That’s where the name Boot Hill Cemetery came from.”
During an effort to clean up the town’s reputation, the bodies were interred and a school house was built on the hill. Once that became derelict, the city later built a municipal building on the site.
When that too fell into disrepair, some local farmers came to the rescue.
“The idea for a distillery came up. We thought we could turn some of our grain into whiskey,” fifth generation farmer and Boot Hill Founder and CEO Hayes Kelman told us. “If we don’t grow the product, we won’t make spirit out of it. We get the corn planted in the ground, taking care of it throughout the year, harvesting it and then finally bringing it up here and turning it into whiskey.”
And so Kansas’ first soil-to-sip craft bourbon was released in 2016. Since then, Boot Hill Distillery has racked up numerous awards including Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
“This is whiskey made on top of the infamous Boot Hill Cemetery, in the world famous Dodge City with grain gown ourselves. Is there any story more American than that?”
After a tour of their hill and their still (housed within the old column where the fireman’s pole used to be located), it was time for us to get the hell out of Dodge (but not without some whiskey).
Boot Hill Bourbon is pot-distilled in 500 gallon batches. Hot, dry summers, bitter cold winters, and the obstinate Kansas wind all do the rest. What emerged from the barrel after its extended sleep exceeded our expectations with notes of caramel, fruit, and spice. Their Bourbon is proofed to a pleasantly hot 90 (45% ABV) proof for the ideal balance of flavor and heat.
2020: Gold Medal - San Francisco World Spirits Competition
2019: Silver Medal - Heartland Spirits Fest
As part of their experimental collection, Boot Hill Wheated Whiskey starts life as a 100% hard red winter wheat mash, it’s then distilled to 160 proof and aged in their charred American White Oak barrels. The final product is one of the most delicate yet bold whiskies they’ve produced to date.
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club by Feb. 10, 2021 to guarantee this box.
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Just the term “Tennessee whiskey” conjures up images of the Jack’s and George’s of the whiskey world. There’s even been songs written about it. But what if there was more to the story?
Enter Corsair Distillery.
Founded in 2008, in Kentucky no less, Corsair became Tennessee’s first legal craft distillery to open since Prohibition when it made its move to Nashville in 2010. Since then, it has racked up more than 800 national and international awards for its forward thinking line up of whiskey, rye and other unusual small batch spirits.
They make everything in-house using a pre-Prohibition era still and have their own malt barn on the outskirts of town. Based in Marathon Village, an old car factory close to downtown Nashville, the character and personality of the space reflects their whiskey.
“Sometimes I wonder how our still is functioning but I really do think it’s the secret to our success,” Lorna Conrad, Corsair's head distiller joked with us. “It’s been around forever and we’ve been making whiskey in it forever. I truly believe it just makes a really amazing product.”
They strive to put “Nashville in a bottle,” Corsair’s co-owner Darek Bell added. Darek began as a home brewer crafting beer, wine, sake, kombucha and just about anything in between. His wife encouraged him to go legit and open up a distillery and follow his passion.
“We have won a lot of awards and that is one of the things we are well known for,” Darek said.
The two bottles being featured in our upcoming box really reflect the work Corsair has been recognized for over the past decade.
“We really appreciate RackHouse Whiskey Club coming out here because there are so many people who have had the chance to try craft spirits from all over the place or from not where they live,” Darek told us. “People think of Tennessee and people think of a standard Tennessee whiskey, I think there’s a lot more to Tennessee craft distilling than your standard typical Tennessee whiskey.”
Whisky Advocate’s Artisan Whiskey of the Year — it’s the whiskey that put Corsair on the map. They use three individually smoked malts (cherrywood from Wisconsin, beechwood from Germany, and peat from Scotland) to craft this deep and complex whiskey. Using three distinct smokes provides consistent and balanced smoke from nose to the pallet and throughout the finish.
∞ 93 points - Beverage Testing Institute
∞ 2018 American Single Malt of the Year, Wizards of Whisky
∞ Gold, 2018 Wizards of Whisky
∞ Gold, 2017 Global Spirits Masters
∞ Gold, 2017 New York Spirits Competition
∞ Gold, 2017 Whiskey International
∞ Gold, 2017 American Craft Spirits Association
∞ Gold, 2016 American Craft Spirits Association
∞ Editor’s Choice, 2015 Whiskey Magazine
∞ Gold, 2014 International Review of Spirits Awards
∞ Double Gold, 2014 San Francisco World Spirits Competition
61% Malted rye, 4% malted chocolate rye, and 35% malted barley make up the grain bill of this rich, delicious whiskey. Unlike many other rye whiskeys, Corsair doesn’t use corn to up its grain bill, choosing instead malted barley which means Corsair Dark Rye is technically both a rye whiskey and a malt whiskey. This produces an exceptionally smooth rye whiskey.
∞ 91 points - Beverage Testing Institute
∞ Silver, 2018 Wizards of Whiskey
∞ Silver, 2018 American Distilling Institute
∞ Silver, 2017 Berlin International Spirits Competition
∞ Bronze, 2017 American Craft Spirits Association
∞ Gold, 2015 American Craft Spirits Association
∞ Silver, 2014 American Craft Spirits Association
∞ Silver, 2014 Wizards of Whisky
∞ Gold, 2014 BTI Spirits Competition
∞ Silver, 2012 American Distillers Institute Awards
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We took a trip out to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, home to Dollywood in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, to meet with the husband and wife team behind the award winning juice we found in our hands — Justin and Cara King.
Cara got her start working in the whiskey industry via her family’s grain firm that supplied rye to distilleries. When she sold her stake in the company in 2015, she started buying barrels as investments.
“As barrels accumulate age, they accumulate value,” Cara told us. “I was either going to become a broker sat behind a screen all day or in the distillery game, which is so dynamic. I’ve seen so many craft distilleries do a great job of expanding the knowledge base and products.”
She ditched spreadsheets for whiskey.
In 2018, King's Family Distillery opened. They currently have 11 products including a bourbon and rye, which will both be featured in the RackHouse Whiskey Club box (see below for a detailed description).
“We really have something for everybody here,” Cara told us as we sipped on a glass. “My favorite is our rye whiskey. It’s a low rye content whiskey so it drinks almost like a high rye content bourbon.”
It’s a rye we're excited to share in our box. King's Family Distillery is marrying the science of distillation with the art of finishing whiskey.
“It’s a good example of what you can do with a sourced product. We’ve very proud of that fact we do sourced,” Cara added. “We source unique mash bills, we source due to the fact that I have known those folks since 2008 very closely so I know who does what very well. I know what to source and from whom. I would say our product is exceptional. We get the barrels in and polish it to make it unique and to bring out the flavor you should be tasting.”
Justin’s prodigy is just as impressive. He was previously the Master Distiller for Ole Smokey Moonshine, the first legal moonshine distillery in Tennessee. Moonshine became his bread and butter winning the American Distilling Industry’s Best in Class Moonshine award in the process.
King’s Bourbon is a high corn mash bill. The flavor profile is big and bold, featuring Bourbon’s signature smoky tobacco and vanilla notes, but with hints of sweet raisin, fig, and date. A true single barrel bottled at 87 proof.
King’s Rye is startlingly smooth, with rich notes of dark chocolate, licorice, and toasted tobacco, followed by sweet roasted hazelnut, dark cherry, and ripe orange, with a robust yet clean finish. King’s Rye mash bill is 51% rye, 45% corn, and 4% malted barley. Bottled at 90 proof.
Corn liquor that is said to be made by a local legend, and the Kings age it for three months in one of their bourbon barrels. Smooth like a bourbon on the front, burns like a moonshine on the back. Bottled at 131 proof.
Not a member yet? Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club!
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We all know the story. But few have had the chance to really taste it too.
In 1920, Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol across the land. Unhappy with this federal mandate, the self-reliant and fiercely independent folk of Templeton and Carroll County, Iowa, decided to defy that law and began producing their own rye. True to their Midwestern roots, they valued quality first and their moonshine soon gained a reputation as the go-to product during the 1920s.
One of those bootleggers was a couple named Frank and Lorine Sextro.
"This started a long time ago, about a mile and half west of Templeton, Iowa by Frank “Shorty” and Lorine Sextro. They had five girls and two boys, and to save the farm, feed and clothe their kids, Lorine made the best rye that there was in the surrounding counties,” Rich Eggers with Sextro Rye told us.
Fast forward 100 years and Sextro Rye, which is cooked and aged at Iowa Legendary Rye’s distillery in Carroll County, is crafted today just the way the Sextro’s used to bootleg it. It’s small batch distilled in Prohibition-era replica 26 gallon stills using local 100 percent rye grain and aged in 15 gallon barrels the same way they used to do it for an authentic historically accurate award winning rye.
"At the height of production, Lorine's rye went to Denver, Kansas City, Chicago, and Omaha. There's so many stories — I could talk all day — but the history is unbelievable," Whiskey Rich, as he is best known, told us.
The Sextros were never caught bootlegging. Lorine nearly took her family secret to her grave. Today, her grandson Heath Schneider and the team are continuing that legacy making Sextro Rye the good old fashioned way.
"We do everything from beginning to end. We're no bullshit. We do everything, and we do it the way she did it 100 years ago," Whiskey Rich said.
What’s more, a piece of the story’s history was recently unearthed adding credence to the tales that were told over many years about the rye.
Legend had it a still and 15 barrels were buried by the Sextros to avoid being caught by the federal government. In 2018, a search was commissioned and specialists with specially trained sniffer dogs were able to locate the buried still a year later.
“This gives us another opportunity to step back in time to Iowa’s Prohibition history,” Sextro Rye’s Heath Schneider said
“I'm not saying new technology isn't awesome, but sometimes the old school stuff — you can't beat it. I mean this is the real shit. This is done exactly the way Lorine made it and it was famous. There is no better," Whiskey Rich explained to us. “It's exactly the way it tasted then, and that's what I'm proud of."
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club to try some Sextro Rye and take a step back in time to a simpler age.
This begins life being distilled in small batches in 26 gallon custom built stills for an authentic historically accurate Prohibition-era taste. It then spends 18 months aging in new 15 gallon barrels. When Grandma Sextro was asked in her 90s why she used such a small barrel, her response was, “Have you ever tried to run from the Feds with a 40 gallon barrel?”
Like other Sextro products, this is made in a historically accurate 26 gallon custom still. It’s then aged in a previously used barrel for eight months and then transferred to a second used barrel for 12 months. The result is an extra level of smoothness usually found in a much more mature spirit.
]]>“We’re the first craft distillery to make bourbon in Seattle,” head distiller Maddie Kelly told us as we stepped into 2bar Spirits distillery located just blocks away from downtown.
Not only that but they do it in a way that mixes its Texan and Scottish influences.
2bar Spirits traces its routes to a ranch in rural Texas run by the founder, Nathan Kaiser’s, family for six generations since the late 1800s. Nathan grew up on the ranch with stories of relatives bootlegging moonshine. After moving to Seattle, he wanted to keep the family tradition alive and opened 2bar Spirits in 2012.
They’re a very traditional distillery making everything from scratch, which reflects the work ethic and ethos of its namesake ranch. Maddie’s day starts by milling 1,000 lbs of grain every single morning.
She’s one of the few female head distillers in the country.
“One of the unique things about 2bar is that we are an entirely grain-to-glass distillery, which means we start the morning by milling grain and we finish the process through aging and bottling on site,” Maddie said.
2bar replicates the process of some of the finest scotch whiskeys.
“Our bourbon does differ from other bourbons from around the country quite a bit,” Maddie said. “In Seattle, we have this huge amount of local breweries which means we have great malt available to us that’s local, grown in Washington, so our bourbon is heavily malted. Although as a bourbon its majority corn, we have a lot of malt in that minority 49 percent.”
One other difference is that they lauter the mash, which means they’re fermenting off the grain — it’s a process seen more commonly in Scotland.
2bar only makes whiskey. Or more precisely, their entire product lineup consists of only two whiskeys.
“We want to do what we do very well,” Maddie told us.
They offer a moonshine whiskey that harkens back to the Texas ranch during Prohibition: “It’s a fun whiskey. It’s really good in cocktails, it’s very versatile.”
The second product is their bourbon: “What we focus on more than anything is our bourbon. Focusing on those two whiskeys means our bourbon especially has gotten better over time. We’re not only able to get the quality really pinned down on the production side but we’re also able to age each batch a little bit longer. We’re seeing the results of that. The whiskey is very well balanced.”
2bar Moonshine is a bit of a family tradition. Made using all Northwest grains; it is a traditional unaged corn whiskey with the sweet corn notes. A great sipping or mixing whiskey, it’s a favorite with ice or in a Moscow (or Moonshine) Mule.
2bar Bourbon is the first all local made in Seattle bourbon; made entirely grain-to-glass using all Northwest grains. It has a smooth and rich texture at 100 Proof with wonderful butterscotch, vanilla and honey notes with subtle hints of dark chocolate and cherry.
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“In this country, there are two million equipped, intelligent and able skiers. I contend that it is more reasonable to make soldiers out of skiers than skiers out of soldiers,” National Ski Patrol founder Minnie Dole said as he convinced the War Department to form the division.
In 2014, the 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit Company launched turning Rocky Mountain snowmelt into bourbon and rye to honor the soldiers’ valor and the mountain lifestyle they represented.
Based in the heart of the Rockies in Gypsum, Colorado, and with a tasting room in Vail, 10th Mountain Whiskey & Spirit Company is Colorado’s premier distillery, crafting spirits from locally sourced ingredients. The distillery’s aim is to represent the best of the mountains and to bring people together. Not only are their products a tribute to the soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division, it’s also a salute to those that share a passion for the mountain lifestyle.
The history of Vail begins with the 10th Mountain Division. Not only did the skiers-turned-soldiers train a few miles south of what is now the world-renowned ski resort, when they returned from the war many of them became entrepreneurs creating ski resorts around the country (including Vail) and in turn encouraged others to pursue their own passion for the mountain lifestyle. It is thought close to 2,000 of the division's troops were involved in skiing-related professions after the war and at least 60 ski resorts were created by men of the division.
As far as the distillery’s products, they’re equally acclaimed. 10th Mountain Bourbon earned a 92 rating from Jim Murray’s Whiskey Bible while its 10th Mountain Rye received an astonishing score of 94 from the same publication.
“If you don’t like it, send it back to us and we’ll drink it for you,” distillery co-founder Ryan Thompson joked with us.
Both are being featured in our next RackHouse Whiskey Club box.
Mash bill with 75% corn.
Appearance: warm amber / brown
Nose: medium sweetness with hints of vanilla and oak, hint of honey
Palate: smooth, medium bodied, toasted nuts
Finish: sweet, medium-long, vanilla
Aged: new charred oak barrel
Global Spirits Competition: Gold
North American Whiskey and Bourbon Competition: Gold
Denver International Spirits Festival: Gold
Jim Murray's 2018 Whiskey Bible ratings: 92 points
Mash bill: high rye with barley.
Appearance: golden amber
Nose: aromas of oak, dark fruit and light caramel with a hint of cinnamon
Palate: spicy, full bodied, touch of toffee
Finish: dry finish with lingering spice and oak notes
Aged: charred oak barrel
Global Spirits Competition: Double Gold
North American Whiskey and Bourbon Competition: Gold
Denver International Spirits Festival: Silver
Jim Murray's 2018 Whiskey Bible rating: 94 points
Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club by Feb. 10, 2020 to try some 10th Mountain and get into the mountaineering spirit.
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Steve Nally’s first job in the whiskey industry was as a janitor for Maker’s Mark. He’s gone on to have a career that’s spanned close to 50 years. That legacy has earned him a place in the Bourbon Hall of Fame along with his wife.
“I would estimate over a 100 million people have tried products I’ve made,” Steve casually told us.
Steve makes world class bourbon. He’s taking the lessons learned as Master Distiller at Maker’s Mark over a decades-long stint and applying them to his newest project, Bardstown Bourbon Company in Kentucky — a relatively new state-of-the-art bourbon distillery pushing the boundaries through innovation.
“I grew up right outside the Maker’s Mark property,” Steve recounted. “I was born and raised there and started in 1972. Between then and 1988, I worked every job at the distillery. I was anything from the night watchman, to the warehouse supervisor, to bottling maintenance. All of the above. In 1988, I became Master Distiller.”
It’s that experience that has molded Bardstown’s approach.
“You have the process — you cooked it, cooled it down, distilled it. All of this was done in a very particular manner,” Steve told us over a glass from Bardstown’s Fusion Series. “It taught me the preciseness of doing everything just right.”
“The history of the bourbon industry is that there’s always been a lot of secrets about it. Everybody knew about the families that grew it and promoted bourbon but you didn’t know a lot about the process itself,” Steve explained. “One thing that Bardstown Bourbon is all about is being transparent to the consumer. No hidden stories and no hidden production practices.”
During Steve’s tenure, Maker’s Mark went from producing 32 barrels a week to being a global powerhouse pumping out millions of bottles. After flirting with retirement, Steve had a stint cooking for Wyoming’s first legal distillery, Wyoming Whiskey, before getting involved with Bardstown when it began production in 2013.
Set on 100 acres of farmland in the heart of the Bourbon Capital of the World, Bardstown is cultivating a Napa Valley style experience on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. They’re a new blend of bourbon makers housed at its state-of-the-art $40 million distillery. Along with producing their own bourbon, they offer custom whiskey production on behalf of 24 different customers including the likes of Jefferson’s, High West, Belle Meade, Hirsch, Calumet, James E. Pepper, Cyrus Noble, and many others.
In 2019, Bardstown is set to produce 6.8 million proof gallons, which equates to 18-20 million bottles. They reserve about 10 percent of its production for its own juice.
As we finished up for the day, we asked Steve if we were talking to a living bourbon legend. His response says you all need to know about him: “I don’t feel like I’m a legend. I think the legends are the ones that started before me.”
And for the record, yes we were speaking with a living legend.
Join RackHouse Whiskey Club to receive a signed bottle of Bardstown Bourbon Company's Fusion Series #1 and a bottle of their yet-to-be-released The Prisoner.
“We’re really excited by our Fusion Bourbon as it really shows the art of blending but also shows what our products are coming to be that’s good a very, very good finish to it. I like to call this finish as the Kentucky hug.” – Steve Nally
Fusion Series #1 is a blend of 60% of Bardstown Bourbon Company’s two-year-old wheated and high-rye Kentucky bourbons along with 40% of 11 year 7 month bourbon from Kentucky to create a smooth, complex pour.
Leather, roasted nuts, and rich caramel of old Kentucky Bourbon is countered with lively fruit and spice of the young Kentucky Bourbon. The result is a unique nose, rich palate, and a balanced, lasting finish.
“The Prisoner is a collaboration we’re doing. The Prisoner Wine Company selects several different vintages of their wine, they blend them together percentage-wise to create the Prisoner wine finish. We’ve got barrels from Prisoner and we’re going to age product in those barrels for about 19 months. That product is going to be blended together in the same ratio that Prisoner develops the wines out of. We’re excited by that. It won’t be on the market until 2020.” — Steve Nally
This starts with exceptional 9-year-old Tennessee bourbon that is then finished in The Prisoner Wine Company’s French oak barrels for 18 months. The result? A complex, welcoming bouquet of blackberry and black cherry blended with aromas of rich honey, vanilla, and baking spices. Hints of the original premium grape blend take the lead on the palate with a touch of sweetness, turning to a ringing, balanced finish.
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As the saying goes: Portland is weird. On a recent RackHouse Whiskey Club trip out there it got us thinking: It must be something in the water. And, as it turns out, we were on to something.
The Oregon capital’s primary water source is supplied by the Bull Run watershed. It’s also the key ingredient in one of the city’s most popular watering holes: Bull Run Distillery.
“We have a very unique water source and it’s called the Bull Run Watershed,” Lee Medoff, Head Distiller and Founder of Bull Run Distillery told us. “It’s protected by an act of Congress back in the 1870s. The city’s fathers got this beautiful lake up in the Cascade Mountains and it’s been that way since the 1870s. It used to flow through wooden pipes by gravity to the city of Portland.”
It’s that water that gives Bull Run Distillery’s products its distinct character.
“The water source is very pristine. There’s nothing else added to it. It’s very soft water and it’s really good to use for brewing and spirits,” Medoff added.
As with all spirits, the ingredients that make it are key. Including its water.
“A lot of people don’t realize that half of what’s in your bottle of alcohol is water,” Medoff explained as we sipped on their nine year aged American Whiskey. “Water is used to cut the product down from distillation strength eventually to bottle strength. The water source from Bull Run is soft water. It adds a much more creamier, oilier and softer mouth feel to the finished product.”
Born and raised in Oregon, Medoff began his career as a brewer. He moved on to winemaking after a move to Europe.
During those formative years working at a French winery, he saw how vineyards used oak to enhance their products and how it added flavor to the wine.
“It gave my first indication of how important barrels are and what wood can do. That started off a lot of things for us as far as finishing,“ Medoff shared.
In 2010, he started Bull Run Distillery.
From forest to faucet to still, Bull Run’s whiskeys are using some of the best water in the U.S. They’re also experimenting with aging them in different types of barrels including cognac barrels, Madeira barrels and Pinot Noir barrels.
“What that does is creates a super unique product. The whiskey is completely different by using new and unique barrels,” Medoff explained. “The whiskeys we’ll feature in the RackHouse Whiskey Club box will show a unique contrast of what barrel aging can do.”
Made from 96 percent corn, it’s the lightest and sweetest product Bull Run offers and has very little barrel character to it despite being aged for nine years.
The same American Whiskey as above is put into French oak barrels for a further two years and takes on the character of what was in that barrel before. In this case, Pinot Noir wine. The result is drier than its cousin.
Try these side-by-side by signing up to RackHouse Whiskey Club.
]]>While that’s cool, what’s even more intriguing are the whiskeys that he and his team have created that were inspired by those adventures.
“Buckshee Bourbon and Rye was founded out of adventure. I smuggled $10 million of alcohol down what was unquestionably the most dangerous road at the time — Route Irish in Iraq,” James told us while sipping on an Old Fashioned concocted using Buckshee Rye cocktail.
“The 10-mile stretch from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone saw constant suicide attacks, IEDs and sniper attacks. I didn’t intended to become a smuggler but there was nowhere for us to get a decent drink. That’s why we started Baghdad Country Club to have somewhere civilized and relaxing to have a drink in. It was a place for ambassadors and assassins to have cocktails side-by-side. Buckshee Bourbon and Rye is inspired by that adventure.”
“James and I spent the past 25 years in and out of North Africa and the Middle East and one of the things we wanted to do was make these whiskeys as representative of where they were born and the concept, friendship and camaraderie as possible,” Buckshee COO Josh Volz told us.
The two teamed up with some key players in the spirits industry like JP Fetherston (US mixologist of the year), Xavier Padovani (partner in Experimental Cocktail Group) and Steven Grasse (Creator of Hendricks Gin and Sailor Jerry Rum) to create a whiskey that evokes many of the adventure-filled locales that have filled the pages of their respective passports.
The name Buckshee is derived from the Arabic word "bak-sheesh" meaning a small tip or bribe. James, a former British paratrooper, told us how colonial soldiers adapted it after World War I to mean a free drink. It was a term commonly used in his unit while serving during the Iraq War. It also reflects the attitude of the bourbon and rye they have created.
The taste of adventure awaits — we’ve yet to come across a cooler whiskey story. We didn’t get to experience the Baghdad Country Club but sipping Buckshee Bourbon & Rye takes us right there.
A smooth sipper with a mash bill of 60% corn, 36% rye and 4% malt.
Bright, crisp and fragrantly aromatic, Buckshee Rye’s mash bill is 95% rye and 5% malt. Both bottles are 90 proof.
We heard that bold statement and had to travel to Holland, Michigan close to the banks of Lake Michigan to check out New Holland Spirits.
“This is a very Dutch community. Obviously being Holland we were founded by a lot of Dutch immigrants,” Brad Kamphuis told us. “New Holland has been founded on being the next New Holland so it’s been bringing the town forward, bringing our community forward through our beer and spirits program.”
New Holland Brewing started in 1997. It has since stemmed into a giant project that includes restaurants and spirits. Their Dragon’s Milk beer is America’s number one selling bourbon barrel-aged stout.
In 2005, they applied their expertise from brewing and began distilling.
“Really our story is pretty unique being a brewery and a distillery. We have the expertise of brewing and fermentation and mashing, and we added the creative side of distilling on top of that, which is really just an extension of brewing,” Brad explained. “You need to know how to make good beer in order to make good whiskey."
Using a still that was built in 1934, New Holland began experimenting. The still itself was the seventh one commissioned in New Jersey post prohibition. It was built for Baldwin Dew Distilling Company but was mothballed away for decades until revived by New Holland in 2008. It's their workhorse and makes every drop of their whiskey.
One such whiskey is their Beer Barrel Bourbon — a beer barrel finished whiskey that began production in 2012, which we’re featuring in our next box that ships in June.
“Being resourceful we had a lot of these beer barrels stacking up and getting in the way,” Brad told us. “Once we emptied the beer out of them we didn’t know what to do with them. That was the creative spark we had to create the Beer Barrel Bourbon.”
The barrels come from Tennessee, get filled with Dragon’s Milk beer twice, they then take mature bourbon and finish it in the beer barrels.
New Holland Beer Barrel Bourbon is the beer drinker’s bourbon, according to Brad.
“If anyone who wants to get into whiskey and doesn’t know where to start, Beer Barrel Bourbon needs to be their first whiskey to try.”
Beer Barrel Bourbon and Beer Barrel Rye — Expect a nice sweetness flavor to it accompanied with a stouted character. One is bourbon based and one is rye based.
RackHouse Whiskey Club has taken the shackles off and is featuring Whiskey Prison in North Carolina. Behind Cell Block East and West at Southern Grace Distilleries at Mount Pleasant Prison we found barrels of bourbon being aged. And it’s entirely legal.
]]>Every two months, RackHouse Whiskey Club features a craft distillery. We tell that distillery’s story with you and ship out two of their finest bottles.
This time, we’ve taken the shackles off. We went to Whiskey Prison in North Carolina and it’s our next featured box that will ship in April.
Behind Cell Block East and West at Southern Grace Distilleries at Mount Pleasant Prison we found barrels of bourbon being aged. And it’s entirely legal.
Home to Southern Grace Distilleries, Mount Pleasant Prison opened in 1929 during the height of Prohibition. As many as 140 prisoners at a time, some of whom were bootleggers, called Cabarrus Correctional Center home until it closed in 2011.
In 2016, a new operation moved in and now the secure facility is home to more than 14,000 gallons of aging whiskey. Conviction Small Batch Bourbon is the first bourbon ever to be legally aged behind bars.
“It is quite common to have former prisoners come and visit us,” distillery CEO and Co-Founder Leanne Powell, a former Chief of Staff to a North Carolina congressman, told us. “The prisoners seem to love the whiskey and love the irony just as much as the whiskey.”
The former prisoners are more than happy to return to the prison now that it is used for holding spirits instead of inmates.
“Some of them have good memories, it’s almost like a homecoming to them,” Head Distiller Sebastian Correa shared with us. “Some of them are just glad to be out. I think all of them are just intrigued and excited at what we’ve done to the place and how we’re using it now.”
Along with my colleagues Dannie and Alex, we stepped through the barbed wire lined gates under the watchtower and were quickly locked in. Southern Grace Distilleries is a one-of-a-kind site that seamlessly connects North Carolina’s bootlegger history with the justice system they strove to avoid.
Stepping through those gates was like taking a step back in time. Southern Grace hasn’t made many updates to the structure of the prison. The flickering of lights in the background, the feint sound of water dripping in the distance, a gush of steam and the clanging of a wrought iron door. Our senses were ready to try out what’s being distilled inside.
Whiskey Prison does not just boast an impressive story; we found an equally intriguing array of whiskey. Their double gold medal award winning Conviction Small Batch Bourbon is smooth enough to soothe even the roughest of convicts. Southern Grace also boasts a strong hard lemonade game. Their Sun Dog Pink Lemonade was named 2017 USA Spirited Lemonade of the Year. It’s a 45 proof corn whiskey mixed with pink lemonade and is a customer favorite.
Two years is a long time to wait in prison. But for the chance to try some Conviction Bourbon, it’s worth it. Freedom has never tasted so good.
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The story begins in 1768 and over generations and subsequent years, Old Nick established itself as one of the most revered whiskey distillers in the U.S. supplying presidents (they have the letters to prove it) and featuring at world fairs. The Eighteenth Amendment and subsequent prohibition forced the distillery to temporarily close.
The distillery has a long history with tackling state and federal laws. One case fought by co-owner Zeb Williams' great grandfather went all the way to the Supreme Court over a battle on taxation.
"It's a dirty trade I guess you would say. And it's not cleaned up much, maybe a little," Zeb told us. "The family has been battling the state and federal government for hundreds of years, we don't see a reason to stop now. It's in our blood to be honest with you just like making whiskey."
Revenuers destroyed over 22,000 gallons of liquor at the beginning of prohibition with an estimated value of $500,000. The broken bottles are still littered across the property.
Zeb's great grandfather died in 1913 shortly after prohibition in North Carolina was enacted in 1909. Of the dozen or so kids, none were older enough to resurrect the distillery once federal prohibition was repealed. After the Great Depression, Zeb's grandfather tried to form the business again.
"The problem is North Carolina was still under prohibition law so he tried do it in Virginia but the bank wanted him to secure the financial notes with the farm and right after the Great Depression he was scared to do that so the business just died," Zeb said.
Zeb, who resurrected the brand in 2014, has brought back the legend of Old Nick and is dedicating himself to living up to the quality and craftsmanship that once made his family's whiskey famous around the world.
"It's very important for our brand and very important for our products moving forward to stay true to what our family did. When you come here to Old Nick Williams Farm and Distillery, you're stepping back in time," Zeb said. "You have the opportunity to try products very similar to what our ancestors would have made on the farm a couple hundred years ago and truly get that pre-United States feel."As a child, he would go digging for bottles at the back of the family's property. On one memorable day he hit treasure and found an intact bottle. Years later, it was sent to be analyzed to help reverse engineer today's version.
Distilling since 1768, prohibition decimated Old Nick Williams. But now, they're back. Sign up to RackHouse Whiskey Club to try it for yourself in our February box.
Old Nick Williams Carolina Bourbon Whiskey - a Double Gold winner at the San Francisco Spirits Competition in 2018. It's a wheated bourbon using all North Carolina non-GMO corn. It's bottled at 92 proof.
Old Nick Williams Carolina Whiskey bottled at 92 proof.
What does a Cambridge University graduate, an Israeli Special Forces veteran, two U.S. Army vets and an engineer have in common? They help make up the team we met at Treaty Oak Distillery in Dripping Springs, Texas.
Treaty Oak’s name goes back more than 500 years after the famous tree in Austin, under which Stephen F. Austin signed agreements defining the borders of Texas. The fourth oldest distillery in the Lone Star State, the whiskey they create is Texas through and through.
"We kiss the vats everyday and that’s what makes it so special. It’s all done with love. This is a taste of Texas that bigger operations don’t have," Alice Barnes, the Founder’s mother and matriarch to the staff, told us on our visit.
The Ghost Hill Bourbon, which will feature in RackHouse Whiskey Club’s Christmas box, is sourced and distilled in Texas. Available in very few states, it’s a blend of three two-to-five-year-old barrels. A second bottle of Red Handed Bourbon will also be in the box.
Daniel Barnes, Founder of Treaty Oak Distilling, recently moved the operation to a 30-acre site that features a restaurant named after Alice, cocktail lab, food truck, the "Rickhouse" bar and, what we’ll call, a rackhouse for barrels.
The distillery’s current output is two to four barrels a day. The highly popular location is expanding and will soon be pumping out 13 or more barrels of whiskey per day.
What set our experience apart were not just the incredible flavors but also the family atmosphere we experienced.
"It’s the biggest family. We are a giant family out there and it really shows through in the passion of everyone’s work," said Matt Bower, General Manager at Treaty Oak Distillery. "People are passionate and they love what they’re doing and they love who they are doing it with so it makes it really easy to be out there."
We’re thrilled to be partnering up with Treaty Oak. Since our visit, we can’t stop reminiscing about the fun we had as we pine for more of their Ghost Hill Bourbon and Red Handed Bourbon. Fortunately for us, and you, we won’t have to wait long to get another taste.
Every whiskey tells a story. Sign up to join the club!
]]>On the next stop of the RackHouse Whiskey road trip to find the best craft distilleries in America, we traveled to Le Claire, Iowa. Overlooking the Mississippi River, it’s the birthplace of Buffalo Bill Cody and now home to TV favorite, American Pickers.
It’s also the spot where brothers Ryan and Garrett Burchett decided to pursue a dream. Ryan swapped the green screen from his TV meteorologist days to making delicious brown stuff, while Garrett hit the highway up to Iowa from Texas where he had a career in designing roads. One predicted precipitation and the other mastered the engineering of land. It’s this marriage of land and water that best describes what they’re doing at Mississippi River Distilling Company.
The Mississippi River used to act as the original highway. At onetime, nearby Keokuk, Iowa was twice the size as Chicago. Timber was chopped and sent down stream and in its wake was replaced with rye, which grew well in the sandy soil.
“There was a tremendous amount of rye whiskey that came out of the Midwest region. This was really where whiskey got its start,” Garrett told us over a Buffalo Bill cocktail. “That’s what we’ve tried to recreate here.”
Everything Mississippi River Distilling Company creates is crafted from grains sourced from farmers within 25 miles of the distillery.
Since beginning in 2010, the brothers say they’ve seen a boom in craft distilleries from about 200 to now nearing 2,000 offering flavors that haven’t been seen for generations.
“There is an expectation of what American whiskey tastes like right now that is all the same. Say the word ‘Scotch.’ What does that mean? What does that tastes like? Scotch tastes like anything under the sun — a million different flavors all from this small specific region,” Garrett said. “That’s what America used to be before prohibition, and I think that’s what we will be again.”
The brothers are on the leading edge of developing flavors that mirror the region’s history and celebrating the time when the Mississippi River was the nation’s artery and epicenter for whiskey.
“What we’ve done here is really put the craft back into and it’s a very unique whiskey that you’re not going to find anywhere else,” Ryan told us.
Expect to receive a bottle from our very own special edition RackHouse Whiskey Club barrel of high proof Cody Road Bourbon Whiskey.
There will also be a sample small batch seasonal bottle of Stone Fence Apple Cider Whiskey, which is a rye whiskey blended with local apple cider instead of water to bring it down to proof. Legend has it that Buffalo Bill Cody's cocktail of choice was the "Stone Fence."
On the next leg of the RackHouse Whiskey Club tour is Desert Door Texas Sotol.
Never tried sotol before? Think Texas love child of whiskey and tequila and you’ll be on the right track.
When we heard that the first and only distiller of sotol in the United States since prohibition was located just outside of Austin, Texas, we had to take a trip to check it out.
"Sotol has been around for almost 1,000 years so it goes back a ways, especially here in Texas and northern Mexico," Desert Door co-founder Judson Kauffman told us. "It comes from the sotol plant. [It] grows in the Chihuahuan Desert, which is only found in northern Mexico, southern Texas and the tiniest corner of southeastern New Mexico."
The sotol plant, which resembles an artichoke but 30 times bigger, isn’t farmed, it’s wild harvested in west Texas using machetes, axes and crowbars to harvest the plant.
Sotol grows in elevation and Kauffman says it’s that location away from the colonized sea level areas of Mexico that initially earned its historical moniker of being a hillbilly moonshine much like whiskey in Tennessee or Kentucky was.
"Over time it was looked at like the poor man’s tequila, even though in our opinion it’s equally if not a superior spirit in terms of quality and flavor profile. Because it wasn’t respected by the educated Spaniards, it fell by the wayside." Kauffman told the RackHouse Whiskey Club Podcast. "We’re proud to be in a position where we can bring that back to the forefront and make it a real spirit that stands next to tequila, bourbon or whiskey."
Kauffman got the idea after his time serving in the Navy. He went to business school where he met two other veterans, Brent Looby and Ryan Campbell. An MBA project then turned into a business in 2016.
Starting with a kitchen still bought off eBay and lots of trial and error, they landed on a distilling process, raised some money and opened their distillery on the outskirts of Austin, Texas.
"It’s worked out and we’re making pretty good booze," Kauffman said. "We have a lot of folks coming here and they’re blown away how smooth it is and how easy to drink it is. It’s been rapidly adopted in our local community in Austin and San Antonio."
From field to bottle, the distilling process can take as little as 10 days and is bottled at 80 proof. An aged variation is barreled for six months in Missourian New American oak.
As far as the name, Desert Door is intended to represent the timelessness of the spirit itself.
"When you drink it, it’s a transportive experience. The natives believed it was a psychedelic plant and they would get high on it," Kauffman said. "So that’s part of it, you drink this and you’re stepping through this doorway to a different world, a different mentality."
As we tasted it, we all agreed it really does taste like the west Texas desert. "It’s a smooth sip of the Chihuahuan Desert," Kauffman explained.
There’s no label you can put on this - it’s sotol.
"It’s got some great American history and it’s a damn good spirit," Kauffman said. We agree.
For those not in Texas, the only way to try some is through being a member of RackHouse Whiskey Club.
"We’re proud to be getting our juice out to the country through RackHouse Whiskey Club," Kauffman noted.
Listen to the full podcast HERE
Every whiskey tells a story. Sign up to join the club!
]]>The premise behind RackHouse Whiskey Club is that every whiskey has a story. And man, does our first featured distillery have a tale to tell.
The head distiller of Iowa Legendary Rye, who is curating our very first box, goes by the name of Whiskey Rich. If that isn’t enough to sell you then wait for the story.
Legend has it Whiskey Rich salvaged a family prohibition era white rye recipe that was in danger of being lost forever. The holder of the secret recipe was a 90-year-old grandma hailing from Carroll County, Iowa.
Heath is the grandson and now works to preserve his family’s legacy alongside Whiskey Rich. We caught up with them both after a road trip across the state.
“It’s a great story. I think I have the only bootlegging grandma in Iowa and maybe the United States for the 1930 era,” Heath told us.
Yup, sign us up for a tipple and an opportunity to hear more.
Heath’s Grandma raised three children with her husband on their family farm during the Depression. What makes her story RackHouse worthy is that she helped bootleg almost 300 gallons of whiskey a day out of the family farm during prohibition. Heath says she did it out of necessity to keep food on the table and the family farm.
She had a cook living in the rear of the farmhouse who worked six days a week. The story goes, the cook was hidden out of sight during the day and worked at night distilling so he wouldn’t raise the neighbors’ suspicions.
While others used her land to make big batch, grandma made a “baker’s” version of it using a natural, non-enzyme pure spirit variation.
Like other families that bootlegged in that era, they hid the stills by putting them out in cornfields near a water source. A layer of dirt would be placed over it and corn grown so they would remain out of view. Legend has it some bootleggers using the farmland got caught when foxhunters stumbled upon their setup. It was torn down and the barrels and equipment were buried in nearby fields where they remain today.
Grandma, through a mix of luck and skill never got caught. She did have a close call when law enforcement came to town and searched the neighboring farmhouse. Word has it they had mistaken the address.
Grandma’s small batch recipe was distilled in 15 gallon barrels. When asked in her 90s why that was the case, she responded, “Have you ever tried to run with a 40 gallon barrel?” Heath and Whiskey Rich make today’s rye using the same recipe and method down to the 15 gallon barrels.
Nestled two miles from Templeton and Manning in Carroll County, the biggest market at that time for grandma’s bootlegged rye was likely Chicago. Spirits from the Templeton area frequently were distributed out of Chicago through organized crime. It’s alleged whiskeys from this region were Al Capone’s favorite, according to Heath.
Today, the rye is made exactly as it was 100 years ago.
“When you drink this whiskey, it’s like going home for Thanksgiving dinner. When you drink anything else, it’s like going through a fast food restaurant. That’s the difference. Hell, it’s the best damn whiskey out there,” Whiskey Rich told us. “It’s true small batch. It’s the real shit.”
White rye is hard to make, Whiskey Rich explained to us as we admired his prohibition era replica setup with a glass in hand. He says the purity of Iowa Legendary Rye is down to the quality of Iowa’s topsoil and grandma’s recipe, which currently has two distill process patents pending.
“We believe there is magic in that formula. You will feel the magic. You will taste the magic. You will come back for more magic. It’s God’s whiskey. There’s nothing better.”
Whelp, Whiskey Rich you might just be right.
Cheers!
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