My friend Adam once told me that his brother made the same lunch for himself every day for years until he utterly and completely burnt out on it. First, it was tuna fish, then it was ramen. I don’t know what it is now. It may still be ramen. The tuna fish phase lasted for about seven years.
Here’s my point: as drinkers, we sometimes become conditioned to a particular spirit. I drank bourbon for three years figuring that it was the brown liquor that would allow me to develop a taste for whiskey. And, admittedly, I think I got a little tired of it for a while. As soon as I tried a good Irish whiskey, I was rewarded with a freshness and a vibrancy it turned out I was looking for. I was left dumbstuck in all the best of ways.
I’ll note that at least historically, some people drank the same shit over and over again until they put them in the ground. (I.e., Grandpa’s proudly declaring “I’m a Cutty man.”) However, if the post-2000s drinking culture is about anything at all, I think it’s the death of brand loyalty. I’d wager that a lot of people who are reading this site will eventually come to a point where they feel like they’ve fully and truly mined all that a category has to offer and are looking to branch out. Assuming they haven’t yet.
As I wrote a while back in my one-two about standards and moving beyond them, rigid production guidelines are good at ensuring a quality, consistent product, but a certain point “consistent” might become synonymous with “unexciting.” And, for whiskey drinkers who hit that point, American whiskies beyond Kentucky’s bourbon trail beckon.
The Good
In order to understand the draw of the category, let’s first briefly look at what a Bourbon needs to be. It needs to be made from at least 51% corn. It needs to be aged in virgin oak barrels. Those barrels need to be blowtorched inside to produce a certain level of “char.” If the bourbon is to call itself “bonded,” it needs to be exactly 100 proof and aged for four years. All of these rules ensure quality, and they also ensure a similar and consistent taste.
It is, quite literally, like stepping into the wild west when you choose to buy an American whiskey that is not a bourbon. The only rule is that there are no rules. American producers are making booze from any distillate they can get their hands on. Balcones has a few varieties of whisky made from 100% corn. High West produces a clear, “white whiskey” made from Oats. Other producers blend a variety of grains together.
In terms of wood aging, some places use the typical charred oak cask. Others don’t. Balcones imbues its “Brimstone” corn whiskey with Texas scrub oak. Corsair’s “Triple Wood” (a 100% barley recipe, which qualifies it as an American Single Malt whiskey) utilizes peat, cherry wood, and beech to produce new flavors. Westland’s highly-praised Garyana single malt utilizes the Oregon-native Garry oak as an aging vessel.
Basically, the variation of flavor becomes simply gonzo. Tasting notes for the Balcones Brimstone have included black bean chili, smoked brisket, burning tire, charcoal briquettes, baking chocolate, and nutty cheese. Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey, a favorite of mine, smells like grilled corn and has an unmistakable taste of roasted hazelnuts. A version of Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye comes finished in vermouth barrels. The other night, a friend and I cracked into Lost Spirits’ “Abomination,” an American take on peated single malt scotch, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t smell (and taste) a little soy sauce.
Again, the benefit of the category is that you’re completely going off the reservation. It is highly unlikely any random purchase will result in you saying, “Been there, done that.”
The bad
One could make a qualified argument that you’re almost never going to get your money’s worth from an American whiskey that isn’t a bourbon or rye. There are a few reasons for this.
The first is one of scale. Most of the bigger producers you could possibly name and their affiliated brands have been doing this whiskey thing for a long time. They have massive stills, cooperages of their own to make barrels, and unfathomably big warehouses to store them while they age. As a result, you can get a superlative bourbon for about $30. Maybe $50, if you’re feeling extremely spendy. Also, corn is dirt cheap in the US and weirdo farm subsidies come into play once you’re at the scale of someplace like Beam-Suntory, MGP/LDI, or Wild Turkey.
Most indie distillers, on the other hand, don’t have the level of scale or vertical integration to offer the same quality whiskey at the same price. They’re squeezed on all levels. How are they going to make it? Where are they going to store it? How are they going to market it to find buyers? What kinds of transportation costs are they going to run into?
Without the infrastructure in place that the big guys have, literally every part of doing business making booze is more costly. No surprise why a lot of American whiskey companies figure it’s a hell of a lot less work to “source” the juice from the big boys and weave a tale about it later. Who cares how true it might be.
So, assuming you’re trying to make whiskey the right way — which is to say, on your own stills and according to your own formula — and assuming you don’t have the benefit of a well-formed distribution network and the economy of scale that the bourbon/scotch big boys have, it’s no surprise how a spirit aged for less than 3 years can reach a price of $80+ a bottle. If this seems like highway robbery, this category may not be for you.
Given the above, most American non-bourbon producers are trying to compete however they can. Sometimes, that means introducing gonzo products with bizarro distillates and aging processes solely because of the novelty of it all—even if that novelty doesn’t necessarily lead to a better product. For example, maybe there’s a reason why we don’t see more whiskies made from sorghum or oats. Or why basically everyone ages whiskey in oak, not beech or mahogany or myrtlewood.
The lowdown
The best way I can describe American single malts and non-bourbon whiskey is that it’s a “pay to play” spirit category. In this regard, it’s a lot like Scotch, but the reality is that you’re never absolutely sure what you’ll get for any particular dollar amount, whereas most people are pretty certain that if you go “up the ladder” by the age statement on the side of a scotch bottle, you’ll probably be getting a better-made product. Generally.
Suffice it to say that this category is for the sophisticates / weirdos. This is not a category for people looking for “smooth.” In fact, most of our non-bourbon, home grown single malts are decidedly rough. Again, this is mostly a consequence of not being able to compete as well on the storing and aging fronts.
However, if you’re intentionally looking for something different, or you want to be exposed to flavors you’ve never encountered elsewhere, this may be the product category for you. Sometimes — and only sometimes — everything comes together when a distillery goes off the beaten path. Sometimes I’ve been burned in taking the journey, and sometimes I’m rewarded with a new favorite, but almost always the experience is an interesting one.
Go ahead and give a ‘lil click to see what I’ve covered so far.
