Wood Hat Aged Blue Corn Whiskey
Wood Hat Spirits was founded in 2012 by Gary Hinegardner, a local agronomist and businessman, located right by the side of the highway in New Florence, Missouri. Gary is also a wood turner and creates, among other things, the wooden hats after which the distillery is named. More pertinent to this website, Gary also creates whiskies and cordials. The Wood Hat Aged Blue Corn Whiskey uses Hopi blue corn and is aged in toasted chinquapin oak barrels, a specials of white oak native to eastern and central North America.
Glenmorangie A Tale of the Forest
The Tale of the Forest is the third in an annual series by Glenmorangie that centers around an idea, whether that is concepts as divergent as Cake or Winter. This single malt takes another creative approach by Dr. Bill Lumsden, where instead of finishing the scotch like the previous two, the barley used was dried – or kilned, to use an industry term – with juniper, birch bark and heather flowers. This mix of woodland botanicals was apparently an ancient way of kilning barley for beer, and is used to infuse elements of the botanicals with the barley, much like how drying barley with peat smoke imparts other characteristics. The art on the box and bottle was illustrated by famed artist Pomme Chan.
Taconic Dutchess Private Reserve Cognac Cask
Taconic distillery was founded in 2013 by Paul Coughlin and Gerald Valenti as Millbrook Distillery until the change to the present name in 2015, located in the Hudson Valley of New York. A farm to bottle operation, the grains and water are all sourced locally and the distillery has a whiskey-central focus. They are also active in the American Distilling Institute, the American Craft Spirits Association and the New York Distillers Guild. The regular Dutchess Private Reserve is a straight bourbon named after the county in New York the distillery is located in and approximately four years old. This particular edition was aged in new oak barrels for 3.5 years before being finished in ex-cognac casks from Remy Martin for a further six months.