September is Bourbon Heritage Month and the folks over at Bourbon Banter have started their annual challenge. Over the next month I’ll be sharing my daily drams as well as some interesting tidbits about bourbon history. I can’t guarantee I’ll get a blog post up every night, but will share a pic on my Instagram and Facebook feeds. I hope you’ll join me, maybe online, maybe in person and we can share a drink.

Let’s cover some basics first. What exactly IS Bourbon? Bourbon is a style of whiskey that has to adhere to the following guidelines by law. It must be made of at least 51% corn in the mash-bill; It must be made in the United States. (No, it does NOT have to be Kentucky); It must be aged in new, charred oak. There are also rules about at what proof it is distilled to (160) and at what proof it goes into the barrel (125). Proof is a measurement that is double the Alcohol By Volume (or “ABV”), so 160 proof is 80% ABV.

I figured the best place to start with this challenge is where I started: Atlanta. I found ASW Distillery when on a trip back to Atlanta a couple of years ago. Their distillery is not that far from the warehouse where my grandparents and my father worked as food distributors when I was growing up.

Making whiskey is a process and takes time. That time is costly for many upstart distilleries, sitting on product for about four years before you can sell it. Much of the new “Craft Whiskey” out there is made in Indiana at a plant called Midwest Grain Products, usually called MGP. Many new whiskey makers will source juice from MGP and bottle it themselves, throw some fancy label with a made-up romanticized story and sell it as their own. A few companies have gotten in trouble for this. Other companies are a bit more open about what they are doing, and are usually “finishing” or changing the product in some way, usually barrel aging on site for a small amount of time. Personally, as long as the company is honest about what they are doing I’m fine with it as long as it tastes good and they have added their mark to it somehow. Afterall, tasting different whiskey is a large part of crafting your own and MGP is a great place to be able to try several different types and recipes all in one place.

That’s exactly what ASW did in the beginning, but rather than just throw it in a bottle, they, as we say in Georgia, “fiddled with it.” They took the high-wheat bourbon ( 51% corn, 45% Wheat, 4% malted barley) they got from Indiana and blended it with their own high-malt bourbon (55% corn, 45% malts of rye, wheat, oat and barley) and they play together very nicely in what they call Fiddler Unison Bourbon. Their distiller, Justin Manglitz, is also a fiddle player.

Tasting Notes: ASW Fiddler Unison Bourbon, Distilled in Indiana and Atlanta, Georgia.

ABV: 45%

Nose: Corn, vanilla, caramel

Taste: Butterscotch, dried apple, oak

Finish: The oak lingers for a bit, then fades slowly. You know it’s there, but it is not overpowering.

Have Fun Sipping!

Stuart