High Coast Hav
High Coast Distillery was founded in 2010 in the Swedish hamlet of Sörviken. The location was formerly a box factory and then power station. The High Coast name only came about during an expansion and rebrand in 2018, however. The distillery is situated beside the Ångerman River and also sources water from the nearby Lake Bålsjön. The extremely wide swing in temperature throughout the year, from -30°F in the winter to 70°F in the summer (not accounting for wind chill), mean that the casking process is accelerated more than almost any place on earth. Master distiller Roger Melander has been spending the past decade and more crafting whiskies worthy of the location and the expanded portfolio now includes four core offerings and dozens of limited editions including the earliest batches. The High Coast Hav, Swedish for “sea”, should maybe considered their gateway offering, consisting of a lightly peated whisky with oak influence predominating.
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.
Smoke Wagon
Scotchology, as the name might imply, focuses primarily on scotch with a healthy interest in other world whiskies. One realm we generally stay away from is bourbon. This is not because we think lesser of the quintessentially American spirit, but rather because it is its own realm in many ways, and scotch provides us with plenty of pathways. Sometimes, however, it is nice to take a small deviation. Smoke Wagon is a high rye bourbon from Nevada Distilling, This small batch offering was first released in 2016 and is a mix of younger, more vibrant rye and older, more complex bourbon. The spirits themselves are from spirits producer MGP, as actually distilling in the heat of Nevada can result in high loss due to evaporation.