Nice Day for a White Whiskey

Wintertime and whiskey go hand-in-hand, but if you’re looking to shake up your cocktail repertoire, reach for a bottle of the brown liquor’s younger brother. White whiskey is an unaged clear whiskey that, because it doesn’t rest in barrels, showcases the flavor profile of its unadultered grain base for a complex mixing spirit. When done poorly, white whiskeys can run dangerously close to eye-watering moonshine, but luckily, two US craft distilleries have a handle on it. Boston-based Bully Boy Distillers and Wisconsin’s Death’s Door Spirits may be separated by a few states (and a few lakes) but both are producing artfully-crafted white whiskeys that pull ahead of the competition.

The story begins with wheat. Death’s Door President Brian Ellison was working in economic development when he turned to distilling in an effort to restore and preserve agriculture on Lake Michigan’s Washington Island (separated from the mainland by a passage of water known as– you guessed it– “Death’s Door”). The hard, red winter wheat grown on the island became the base for their white whiskey, which is mixed with malted barley and fermented with a Champagne yeast. The final spirit has a fruit-forward nose followed by biscuit notes from the grain. Ellison explains, “I really wanted to be oriented towards Northern latitude. If you think about Canadian whiskeys in general, they tend to be lighter in color and lighter in flavor. I think the direction we’re heading in is actually making exemplary Canadian-style whiskeys.”

Bully Boy founders Will and Dave Willis came to white whiskey through the spirit of innovation that drives their distillery, though they’re rooted in tradition. The liquor artisans also take advantage of their smaller size to experiment with interesting spirits. Says Dave Willis, “White whiskey sounds like something new to the market and like something really off the wall, and I suppose from the standpoint of releasing one commercially, it is a relatively new thing. But it’s been around as long as barrel-aged whiskey. In fact, even longer.” Their unaged wheat whiskey sits on steel before bottling, and has a touch of time in American oak barrels to mellow it. Flavor notes include banana from the grain as well as botanical qualities (spearmint, anise, twig) reminiscent of gin, coupled with the cleanliness of vodka.

Ellison and Willis encourage drinkers to consider white whiskey as part of a clear spirit portfolio that includes white rum, tequila blanco, cachaça, pisco and eau de vie. “It’s a white spirit,” says Ellison. “It’s not an attempt to be a brown spirit without any color.” These clear liquors, traditionally used for mixing, offer a wide range of cocktails that their amber brothers can’t. So when the snow starts to fall, take a page from Boston’s winter weather and make your cocktails white. A bottle of Bully Boy White Whiskey comes with a recipe booklet to introduce imbibers to the spirit’s flexibility, like in the Whiskey Ginger (below) or the Bully Boy Smash served at Top of the Hub. Death’s Door White Whisky plays nice with the Czech herbal liqueur Becherovka and bitter Cocchi Americano in the Atwood Cocktail. The best rule of thumb: experiment. As Willis says, “Citrus, ginger, mint, a little bit of sugar– it’s a slam dunk.”

Atwood Cocktail, courtesy of Shaun Layton of L’Abattoir (Vancouver, British Columbia)