Draft #5

Celebrating American Single Malt

I’m fascinated by the range of flavors and expressions in American Single Malt today.  (I even did a micro-blend of the twelve single malts in 50StateBlend).  The yet-to-be-official category allows for a huge amount of variation and experimentation.  Some distillers use small pot stills, others, large column stills. Some adhere to traditional Scotch, or Irish practices while others are famously independent hackers of paths entirely their own.  I’m intrigued by them all!

Five of the single malts in this blend feature smoke, including the peated Westland,  the mesquite-forward Whiskey Del Bac and Colkegan, the Painted Stave, and the pecan and peach wood in John Emerald.  Others are herbaceous, like Atelier Vie, Westward, and the superbly delicate Warfield.  There’s the red-appled Brickway, and the impressive richness of the custard-forward Defiant, the distilled stout of Sons of Liberty and the Single Barrel Balcones.  So much variation! So much potential!

I exaggerated the proportion of Single malt by 50%, kept Rye consistent and reduced the Bourbon in Draft #5 by about 15% to let the Single Malt shine through.  I’m very pleased with the result because I can virtually taste the component parts.  I will likely play with finishing in a fortified wine (or barrel-aged beer!) barrel in the future!

Photo courtesy of http://www.americansinglemaltwhiskey.org/