Branch & Barrel Plumwood
Branch & Barrel Distilling was founded in 2015 by friends Ryan Morgan, Scott Freund and Tom Sielaff after years of aging new make whiskey with different woods. One of them was wood from a plum tree, and was perhaps the one that finally pushed them into getting the distillery off the ground for real. The base spirit is a bourbon mash with high barley but some of their offerings are not aged in virgin oak barrels and thus do not meet the regulatory requirements to call it bourbon. The Branch & Barrel Plumwood is matured entirely in plum wood barrels and made in very small batches.
Craigellachie 17 Year
Craigellachie was founded in 1891 at the confluence of the rivers Spey and Fiddich. Despite being owned by international spirits conglomerate Bacardi, it is operated by scotch giant Dewar & Sons, along with Royal Brackla, Aberfeldy, Aultmore, and Macduff. Craigellachie has predominantly used for blends throughout its life, but the distillery began offering a line of age statements in 2014, albeit not what might be considered industry norm for years. That diverting from the norms is something Craigellachie does not shy away from. The Craighellachie 17 Year offers no flashy story or gimmicks, it is simply a whisky aged a minimum of 17 years from a proudly unapologetic distillery, unafraid to embrace who they are.
The Dead Rabbit
The Dublin Liberties Distillery, as you might be able to tell from the distiller name, is intensely proud of their roots. The Liberties section of Dublin is a famous and storied part of the city with a history too checkered and daring to include here. Everything about the distillery is intricately tied to historical people and places from the Liberties or connecting to Ireland more broadly. Take a tour and you’ll see, trust us. This particular offering is 5 years old and made in collaboration with The Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog in New York City. This Irish Whiskey bar is in turn named after the Dead Rabbits, a notorious gang of Irish immigrants in the mid-1800s whose rivalry with the Bowery Boys eventually resulted in riots that lasted for days.