Sugarlands Shines The Spotlight On Unaged Whiskey

I'm a big fan of well crafted moonshine. In particular the flavors you get from unaged corn and rye whiskey from Sugarlands Distilling Co. made in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Since there's no such thing, for instance, as aging in vintage French blond oak for 10 years, you get a wild and uninhibited flavor experience that's "straight out of the gate" yet way more refined than I'm imagining the bathtub variety would have been that proliferated during Prohibition. Sugarlands Shines' character uniquely reflects the very essence of the grains they use thanks to historic recipes and a custom-designed Still House.

Sugarlands begins their process with an artisanal stone mill grinding their corn and rye into meal mixed with pure Smoky Mountain water, moved to a giant cooker, and then transferred to the fermenter to simmer for a few days. Next, the "wash" is pumped into the copper pot still, heated and distilled as the alcohol vapors filter through the copper pipes rising up through the distillation column plates and then down the chilling column to cool where it's finally poured out of their patented Spirit Safe into signature wide mouth Mason jars. You're getting the raw fires and genuine expression of identity that can only come from a sweet corn or mellow rye reaching 100 proof for the first time!

|Opening their doors in 2014, Sugarlands Shine is a definite newcomer on the scene yet is already experiencing crowd-control inducing popularity in their downtown tasting room on Route 441 as well as wider distribution to 18 other States outside TN. So it's clear that word is spreading based on merit but Sugarlands isn't stopping there. They have just launched a new Whiskey Project partnering with Silicon Valley's Lost Spirits to distill traditional rye whiskey using THEA One, a portable aging reactor that uses photocatalysis and esterification to replicate the chemical signatures and flavor profiles found in top brand spirits aged for at least a decade.

But for now, I'm stoked with Sugarland's Jim Tom Hedrick's Unaged Rye, an earthy balance of spicy rye and toasted grains unfolding with a potent punch to the palate. On the mellower side, their Silver Cloud Corn Whiskey's subtle authentic sweetness of fresh Tennessee corn and cane sugar steadily unfolds into a uniform finish with a crisp polished kick.

Photos courtesy of Sugarlands Distilling Co. & Steve Mirsky.  Coverage made possible by participating in a sponsored tasting.