Castle & Cairn

In what is in my mind one of the great collaborations in the history of whiskey, Atlanta's ASW distillery has teamed up the legendary Big Green Egg to put out a series of individual barrels, riffs on ASW's Georgia Heartwood bourbon plus hand harvested staves toasted or charred on a BGE ceramic cooker. Master Distiller Justin Manglitz selected these staves from timber in Habersham County, GA before toasting (indirect heat) or charring (direct heat) on the egg using hickory charcoal. So far, they have done a number of single barrels and eggspanded to the current small batch product, each varying slightly in design, intent, and taste. This is bottle #743 from the "Short Toast Release" (barrel picks with ASW usually yield around 190 bottles). To my knowledge, there have been at least three single barrels and the same number of batched editions, so I imagine they'll keep the series going. 🛒 Sourced:  $79.99 Tower Beer, Wine & Spirits, GA 750ml - a third Atlanta ...

Founded by University of Georgia graduates Jim Chasteen and Charlie Thompson, American Spirit Whiskey Distillery ("ASW") is a craft producer out of Atlanta, GA with the plant registry DSP-GA-20014. As Southern Pot-Still Pioneers, they are one of the few producers to distill in the ancient Scottish Tradition of small, grain-in batches (where grain solids are left in for the remainder of the distillation process) though they also partner with Midwest Grain Products to source distillate for further aging, finishing and blending before bottling as is the case here. This bottle is from the June 2023 batch which is a blend of two principal spirits. ASW's master distiller, Justin Maglitz, is accomplished old-time string music fiddler and he often experiments with various factors between batches. As such, the "Fiddler" brand name fits perfectly. No two batches are truly the same, but all of the ones I've had so far have been to my liking. This bottle shares the same...