Michter's 2013 Celebration Limited Edition Sour Mash Whiskey

Michter's 2013 Celebration Limited Edition Sour Mash Whiskey

In the 18th century, a Swiss Mennonite farmer by the name of John Shenk settled his family near Pennsylvania's Blue Mountain Valley. Within a few years, Shenk was harvesting more grains than he could sell, and so he began distilling the excess grains into whiskey. Shenk's distillery, which was eventually named Michter's Distillery, became the United States' first distilling company. Just two decades after Shenk opened the doors to his distillery, General George Washington began purchasing Michter's Distillery Whiskey in order to fortify his men as they camped through a long and brutal winter at Valley Forge. Michter's Distillery, as the saying goes, was the whiskey that warmed the American Revolution. The passage of Prohibition in 1919 forced Michter's Distillery, along with nearly every other distillery in the United States, to close. In the early 1990's, however, Joseph J. Magliocco teamed up with Richard Newman in an effort to resurrect the brand. "When we set up our whiskey program for Michter's Distillery," says Magliocco, "Dick and I wanted to get back to the "cost be damned' roots and produce the finest whiskey possible. Our goal was to show that whiskey made in the United States could be the equal of great whiskey made anywhere in the world." Michter's Distillery Celebration Sour Mash Whiskey is the culmination of Master Distiller William Pratt's lifetime of experience in the whiskey industry. Pratt, a maturation perfectionist, is known as Dr. No since he often refuses to bottle aging barrels of whiskey. According to Pratt, whiskey that is aged for over a decade hits a "fork in the road,"and can either become incredible or unpalatable. "One of the barrels we sampled was unbelievably woody," Magliocco says. "And we reject that, we literally sewer it. Willie had another barrel that tasted delicious, but the consistency was like molasses, and we obviously couldn't sell that." Michter's Distillery Celebration is a marriage of select casks of 20 year-old and 30 year-old whiskey, together with a few other exceptional barrels selected by Pratt personally. After the barrels were blended together, they were bottled by hand behind a label with 18 karat gold lettering. In addition, an elegant gift box was prepared for the bottle. Only 273 bottles of this sour mash whiskey were made in 2013. Pick up a bottle today!