You lost me there, buddy.
Thatâs fine. Itâs still whiskey.
How on earth you make single malt whiskey by blending fruit with malt? That just doesnât make any sense to me.
By definition, whiskey is made with grains. Single malt is made exclusively with malted barley. If you blend in other grains, itâs blended whiskey, not single malt. If you blend fruit brandy with whiskey you get a distilled spirit made with grains and fruit, not whiskey.
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If you blend in 20% cranberry juice with Oregon Pinot Noir, itâs still Pinot Noir?
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Otto, I donât know what Iâm talking about. LOL.
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Never claimed to be making single malt whiskey.
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Thatâs clearly not what is being done and yes you are allowed to use non-grain distillate and still have it be whiskey. I can quote the TTB statute if youâd like. We realize some hardcore people are not going to be down with this and thatâs fine. Still, legally, whiskey.
Sounds amazing! How long will you age it?
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Didnât say you did, my comment on single malts was an answer to Brig.
Anyways, donât get me wrong, the spirit sounds interesting and potentially delicious.
However, itâs just wrong to call it whiskey in the sense it does disservice to both American whiskey and to the product itself. As I said earlier, whiskey is - by definition - a grain spirit, so blending in fruit brandy makes it something else.
Sure, according to the US law you can blend in some non-grain distillates and still legally call it whiskey (unlike in other whisky-producing countries). However, blending different spirits is what is usually done with the cheapest bottom-shelf stuff to cut costs. Iâd rather try to distance the product from that kind of style and brand it differently in order to highlight the combination of spirits instead. Otherwise calling a non-grain product âwhiskeyâ sounds more like cutting corners to make whiskey more cheaply - at least to a whisky personâs ears. Just like blending in a maximum amount of generic Central Valley wine to a wine that is supposed to be Napa Cab is something that makes me immediately react negatively to such wine.
I think there should be a pontificating badge here on the board.
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Nothing I can do about what others have done and continue to do. Not trying to start a whiskey riot but letâs say you didnât know shit about whiskey and I told you one spirit was 80+% grain distillate with the balance being distilled wine and one was 51+% distilled corn with the balance being grain distillate (I realize corn is a grain). Which would you assume took the short cut? Weâre not making some insane amount of stuff nor are we attempting to challenge the existing structure of things.
Nonetheless, our âstuffâ is made with Oregon grains largely sourced through OSUâs Barley World program that sources rare heritage barley/rye seeds and encourages local farmers to grow them. For instance, one of our releases is from a barley called Purple Karma which is a Tibetan barley rarely seen in the US. It is a high protein/low sugar barley that is difficult to work with let alone ferment so it has limited/no large scale commercial viability. But itâs crazy delicious. So, yeah, we have that and it, to my knowledge is the only whiskey in the world made using Purple Karma Barely. Weâve used local malt houses and a small craft brewery to do the fermentations. We were contracting with a small distillery to do the distillations until it became obvious this was going somewhere and I, along with my associate winemaker at PGC and the woman doing the distillations, bought it. This isnât some branding deal like so many spirits labels flooding the market. This is all-local, artisanal work that is making real, honest and wildly delicious stuff.
I donât know that this is the place or forum for all this. I realize Wine Talk is EASILY the biggest of the forums so this is where people go for lots of things in and around wine, wine-travel, food, etc. I am not trying to pitch our stuff here, only explain it in the context in which Brig, nicely, brought it up. I know this will be a bridge to far for some people who live and breath scotch or bourbon. As a winery I feel like we have always sort of swum up stream to an extent and when the whole wildfire thing reamed us in 2020 this slowly crept into our lives and it has, to an extent that is less of a side hustle and more just a lot more hustling, become a thing of its own. I am as proud of the endeavor and the results as is possible, especially for someone who is not particularly prideful. There will be more information coming as we get into the first round of bottling here soon. Sorry, if this got too off track for this forum. Not my intention but felt like there needed to be some answers put out there. Hope this was seen as helpful and not sales-y.
Iâm
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how do we buy this?
Some stuff has shown that at 2 years it is incredible and more than ready to be bottled. Other stuff? Who knows? We have multiple different barleys (Purple Karma, Francin, Baroness, Lightning, Full Pint and others on deck) and a couple of ryes (Gazelle and Northern) and multiple iterations of some of those so, again, who the hell knows what will happen? Some stuff could take years and years, some stuff a couple. In for the journey.
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At this point I feel like I shouldnât go further in terms of using the board as a self-promotion vehicle. I think, as a producer that contributes here in a variety of ways, itâs important to me to keep things on the informational side and not stray into flat out selling on the board which seems gauche. So, if youâre interested I am happy to field emails at jim@patriciagreencellars.com or if you want to get super-technical about separating the spirits from the wine you can email me at jim@diethewolf.com which is the name of the distillery. Again, the distillery is owned by me and others and while I am an owner of PGC the two entities are separate. The whiskey distilling is contracted by the winery and hence the whiskey is a winery âproductâ and will be sold under the label Patty Green Whiskey Distillers. The distillery also makes other stuff under two different labels, Dogwood Distilling (the company we bought) and Die The Wolf (what we re-named the whole distillery and what certain niche items will be labeled as). Confused? Good. Email me.
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How about some bread made from these heirloom grain strains? 
*Jimbo thanks as always for contributing here, it doesnât go unnoticed.
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I understood from the get-go that it was going to be proper stuff made with real deal ingredients, making it already sound very interesting and potentially delicious - as I stated earlier!
I certainly agree that there is nothing one can do what others have done and do, and most certainly most people who have no idea about distilled beverages do not care one little bit what is in the bottle - just as much as non-wino people might not care one bit if a Pinot Noir had 25% overripe Merlot grapes blended in, as long as the wine tastes good. However, a wine enthusiast might not think similarly.
Exactly the same way a whiskey enthusiast, who happens to come across a bottle of whiskey that actually contains 20% grape brandy might think âoh, another one of those whiskies stretched thin with fruit boozeâ - or just taste it without knowing anything about it and think less of the product, just because it is supposed to be whiskey, but (supposedly) shows some brandy character. If a whiskey enthusiast wants whiskey, they might not enjoy if their whiskey shows some qualities that are not to be expected from the style.
However, I know most spirit enthusiasts are definitely more than interested in trying out anything that is in the spirituous ballpark, which is why I can imagine such people would be more than thrilled to try out a distillate thatâs almost (pure) whiskey but blended with brandy for extra character.
Although legally you can call the product whatever you want to - and who knows, maybe a product labeled as âwhiskeyâ simply sells better than a unique special designation! - but I was viewing this from an enthusiast point of view. I imagined this distillate would be more in the premium rather than the cheap booze category, so a spirit enthusiast would probably be the more probable customer segment here, which, in turn, is my reasoning why it would be better not to sell it as a âwhiskeyâ to the people who might not think of it as âwhiskeyâ, but instead brand it as a product highlighting its qualities. By calling it âwhiskeyâ you sort of immediately throw out its fruit component out of the equation.
But the discussion is getting sidetracked once again, sorry about that. I still want to emphasize that no matter what the spirit is going to be called, it still sounds very interesting and Iâd definitely love to taste it if I ever manage to get my hands on a bottle in the future!
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@Jim_Anderson Iâm not trying to drag you into the commercial rabbit hole youâre trying to avoid, but will the blueberry wine be offered to your wine club members?
Yes. Itâs available direct through the winery.
Hey Jim, Iâd like to go ahead and just put my order in for the bottle Otto doesnât want because youâre making Briskey.
Oh Otto, Otto⌠
Awesome writeup and photos. The blueberry wine sounds really neat. Iâve never had one from anywhere and would like to try one. Iâm also really intrigued by the whiskey project! Heck, the sparkler sounds awesome too.
I visited Goodfellow one time and Marcus, bless his heart, spent some time with us even though he and his poor wife were the proud new parents of a (from memory) 2-week old child at the time! Truly above and beyond.
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