Dominated almost entirely by mega-distillers like Jim Beam, Buffalo Trace, Wild Turkey and Heaven Hill, the American whiskey landscape is oligarchical and old. The reason for this is straightforward: making good whiskey requires extraordinary initial capital, and the capacity to bleed money for close to a decade. This has led many of America’s next-gen distillers down a dark path, relying almost exclusively on buying stocks of whiskey from other makers and passing it off as their own. Five-year-old distilleries selling 10-year-old bourbon without any mention of where the whiskey might have been made.
Beyond transparency concerns, reliance on bought-stock spawns issues of its own. Newer distillers leaning on the work of other whiskey makers means less craft, less innovation and more stagnation in a slow-moving industry. If the smaller, less bureaucratic producers aren’t free to experiment and explore new corners of whiskey, we leave that task to colossal macro-distillers. In this way, craft whiskey is related to craft beer in name alone.
But there are new American whiskey brands trying, in earnest, to change that perception. Craftspeople pushing for a more creative, more clear and more diverse whiskey shelf. From rye blenders to hype peddlers, these are ten of the brands leading whiskey’s next act.
Balcones
Headquarters: Waco, Texas
Bottle to Try: Balcones Baby Blue
Balcones’s guiding principle was established early on — to make it different and make it Texas. Original founder Chip Tate built his own stills, his own barrels and opted to buy Texas-grown blue corn instead of the more economical commodity grain. In other words, it was as Texan as possible, and people loved it. Baby Blue, the first release, earned a Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, and the word was out: a craft distiller was making great whiskey unlike anything else. With an ongoing series of limited releases and slightly-off-kilter signature whiskey lineup (including an American single malt and a 100 percent blue corn whiskey), Balcones has continued being its weird self since.
