Jesse:
Happy New Year, brother! If you’re reading this post, I presume you’ve finally found a WiFi hub. Good: you’re gonna get a kick out of this dispatch.
[NOTE: To all our fellow New Scots following along at home, Jesse has just deployed to Afghanistan; he’ll be there for the next 7 months. He decided that defending our freedom abroad is a good way to pass the time when you’ve got bourbon aging back home…]
I spent most of the day with John and Rick at the Albany Distilling Company, and together we sampled New Scotland Spirits’s one-year-old bourbon. It seems like just yesterday we were pouring that clear divine nectar into charred oak barrels… yet somehow that was over twelve months ago, as proven by the crisp golden color seeping into our bourbon.
I mean, just LOOK at this! After only a year, our bourbon has taken on the honey-colored hue of the oak it’s kissing.
But the sight of the bourbon isn’t what’s newsworthy here; that distinction belongs to the taste. And in a word: it’s mother f**king great.
So that’s three words—one was insufficient.
Jesse, I’m telling you… this is going to be BIG. Our bourbon is already so quality that we could probably just bottle it now. But true to convention, I agree that we should age it for the minimum two years necessary to secure the “straight” bourbon whiskey distinction, and then an additional two years after that in line with the traditional significance of the bottled in bond legislation.
Anyway, I had a blast with the ADCo boys. They were gracious enough to make some time to pull samples from our casks, and then we talked business over bourbon at the bottle shop. They were clearly surprised that we’re achieving such promising notes in our whiskey so early on in the aging process. This business is one gigantic and excruciating exercise in delayed gratification, because enjoying the phenomenon in these pictures is 36 months away. But if this past year is any indication, 2023 will be here before we know it.
12 months down, 36 to go!
Keep your head down out there, bro. You’re not gonna want to miss this… so get home safe and sound.
—Patrick