Tag: Whiskey Del Bac

  • Seven Days of ASMW 2026 // Whiskey Del Bac Club Blend 2025

    Seven Days of ASMW 2026 // Whiskey Del Bac Club Blend 2025

    If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone call American Single Malt Whiskey “American Scotch,” I’d have enough to fund a much larger collection.

    But that collection would be funded by misconception at best.

    There’s no such thing as “American Scotch.”

    The first problem with the phrase is its impossibility. Scotch is, by definition, Scottish. American whiskey is, also by definition, American. The two are separated not just by geography (including a really big ocean), but by culture, history, and law.

    The second problem is the implication. Calling it “American Scotch” suggests mimicry, as if American whiskey are trying to counterfeit Scotch, the liquor equivalent of a “Guuci” bag sold on a New York street corner.

    Yes, many American Single Malt Whiskey distillers were, and are, inspired by Scotch. Some even produce spirits that taste remarkably like Single Malt Scotch Whisky. 10th Street Distilling’s Peated Single Malt, one of 2025’s Seven Days of American Single Malt Whiskey selections, is one such expression. Peated Scottish barley, copper pot stills, and ex-bourbon barrels produce a whiskey that, if you closed your eyes, could have originated on Islay—except it was distilled and bottled in California instead.

    This is the exception for American Single Malt Whiskey, not the rule. Even as American distillers draw from Scottish distillation traditions, they’re forging a distinct identity, represented in unique flavors that carry a uniquely American sense of place. 

    American Single Malt Whiskey is not a derivative of Scotch whisky, but a definitive spirit in its own right.

    The differences matter. Beyond geography, American single malt distillers have far more creative freedom than their Scottish counterparts. There is no pot still requirement, no three-year aging mandate. These liberties allow American distillers to experiment, to innovate, and to create a market on its own, separate from Scotch whiskey (and from bourbon too).

    In Tucson, Arizona, Whiskey Del Bac is doing more than crafting an identity; they are teasing the Scotch whisky world aong the way.

    If you meet the team behind Whiskey Del Bac, you would know the teasing was likely not intentional—or, at least, not ill-intentioned. The founder, Stephen Paul, is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. He built the distillery out of his garage, driven by curiosity and a history of handicraft.

    Whiskey Del Bac produces both smoked and unsmoked barley malt whiskeys, but the smoke you experience from this desert distillery is nothing like what you’d experience on the Isle of Islay.

    That is, of course, intentional. The distillery’s mantra—mesquited, not peated—signals a style that is cheeky, bold, and unmistakably Southwestern. Heat replaces humidity. Dust replaces brine. It tells you exactly who Whiskey Del Bac is, but it’s also a little cheeky, an exaggerated wink to Scotch drinkers, Scotch haters, and the Scotch Whisky world itself. 

    Provoking, or even outright offending, the Scotch Whisky industry is something of a rite of passage for American Single Malt Whiskey distilleries. Whiskey Del Bac earned their stripes in 2025, when the Scotch Whisky Association—the official body charged with protecting Scotch Whiskey, sent them a cease and desist letter targeting the name of the distillery’s annual winter release.

    The concern? That a saguaro-cactus-adorned bottle, clearly labeled as American Single Malt, might somehow confuse someone into thinking it was Scotch simply because it was named “Ode to Islay.”

    The letter, though inconvenient in timing (having landed just weeks before the expression’s release), was important. It indicated that Whiskey Del Bac had arrived. The Arizona distillery is no longer too small, too obscure or too inconsequential to be ignored.

    As Whiskey Del Bac grew, so did the scrutiny—and so did the SWA’s efforts to distance its whisky wards from these desert-made spirits.

    So, no, American Single Malt Whiskey is not “American Scotch.”

    A cease-and-desist aside, the proof with Whiskey Del Bac’s spirits is in the sip. That’s true with the now-renamed “Ode” and with the 2025 Private Barrel Club Blend American Single Malt Whiskey in my glass.

    Tasting Whiskey Del Bac’s Club Blend 2025 American Single Malt Whiskey

    Members of Whiskey Del Bac’s Whiskey Club aren’t just fans of the spirit; they’re insiders. Currently only available in Arizona but with plans to expand, the club offers members special access to invitation-only events and distillery-only releases.

    The Club Blend 2025, is one of those releases: an exclusive, cask-strength blend of six barrels, with just 282 bottles filled in total. Number 152 is in my hands.

    Four of the barrels held the “Classic” whiskey, the distillery’s unsmoked spirit. Two were filled with Dorado, the mesquited-not-peated single malt made with barley malted and mesquite-smoked on site. All six barrels were on their second use—a departure from the distillery’s usual first-fill approach—and aged for at least three years, making this the second-oldest American Single Malt Whiskey they’ve ever released.

    Yes, three years in the barrel makes this spirit the second-oldest American Single Malt Whiskey from Whiskey Del Bac. Whiskey maturation just hits differently in the Southern Arizona desert—especially for a distillery that, as a rule, pours its new make spirit into virgin 15-gallon barrels.

    That’s not even the biggest surprise about this bottle.

    You might be tempted to think that a one-third ratio of smoked to unsmoked malt means a light smoky flavor. You would be absolutely incorrect. The aroma of mesquite, reminiscent of desert barbecues and warm nights, appears at the first pop of the cork. It carries with it a scent of sweet vanilla and baking spices, warm and inviting.

    On the palate, the 126-proof spirit amplifies that warmth, with campfires and cream, crème brûlée, and sticky pastries. The flavors are bold, rich, and lingering, coating the tongue and lighting a fire all the way down.

    It’s not fair—or honest, or complete—for me to explain the flavor of Whiskey Del Bac in this way.

    To me, this whiskey is a dark cigar and a low fire under a clear night sky, stars glowing and sparkling above, unhindered by the glow of streetlights. It’s long evenings at Batch, the downtown whiskey bar, sipping on Scotch and American whiskeys as I lick the sticky icing of a house-made donut off my fingers. It’s too-hot nights and the not-so-distant howl of coyotes and the way that the brown-and-green desert explodes into color with the spring bloom.

    At its best, whiskey isn’t just a drink, a portal to drunkenness, or a social lubricant. It is experience and memory, deeply personal yet meant to be cherished, savored, and shared.

    Sláinte, y’all.

    In My Glass

    Club Blend 2025 American Single Malt Whiskey

    Whiskey Del Bac – Tucson, Arizona

    63% ABV; 3+ Years Old

    On My Desk

    1961 Olivetti Lettera 22 Typewriter

    Read More from the Seven Days of American Single Malt Whiskey 2026

    A Note of Gratitude

    This bottle of Whiskey Del Bac Club Blend 2025 was sent to me by the team at in Tucson. Thank you all for sending such a beautiful bottle of whiskey!

  • Seven Days of ASMW 2025 // Whiskey Del Bac Classic Bottled-in-Bond

    Seven Days of ASMW 2025 // Whiskey Del Bac Classic Bottled-in-Bond

    On January 19, 2025, American Single Malt Whiskey becomes an official spirits category in the United States. The ratification of this new category (the first in more than half a century) was announced last month with an effective date of this coming Sunday.

    For ASMW distillers and enthusiasts, the recognition of American Single Malt Whiskey as its own distinct category is significant, offering legitimacy, transparency, and accountability to the whiskeys that bear its label.

    To honor the occasion, we’re celebrating with SEVEN DAYS OF AMERICAN SINGLE MALT WHISKEYS. Every day this week, I’m selecting an American-made single malt whiskey and featuring it here, on Instagram, and even on LinkedIn. All of the selected whiskeys are already in my cabinet; I didn’t buy any new bottles for this occasion. Some are open and well-loved, while others are yet-uncorked, ready to be experienced for the first time.

    Some, like today’s whiskey selection, are a mix of both.

    Whiskey Del Bac, the Tucson, Arizona distillery that lives by the mantra “mesquited, not peated,” deserves credit for being the American Single Malt Whiskey that drew me into the category. I lived in Tucson for seven years, with Whiskey Del Bac (also known as Hamilton Distillers) as my home distillery.

    That sounds so very magical and right for the whiskey enthusiast I am today, but I have to confess something: while I enjoyed Whiskey Del Bac in a cocktail, or even poured neat, many times over the first four years of my desert life, I didn’t really give this locally-made whiskey a lot of thought.

    When I went out, I almost always ordered Scotch. I had cut my whisky teeth on Laphroaig 10, and I was actively planning a trip to visit distilleries 5,000 miles away, with barely a thought to those within the borders of my own country. American whiskey simply didn’t enter my frame of reference—not bourbon, not rye, and certainly not American single malt whiskey.

    All that changed when I visited Whiskey Del Bac in late 2021.

    The shift really began in 2020, when the pandemic forced all of us to spend far too much time at home. I was lucky enough to continue working remotely throughout the lockdowns. Like many people in my situation, my bank account rose, my usual spending outlets suddenly limited by the seclusion. I started buying more whisky as a result, and, with an abundance of free time, learning more about the craft of distillation too.

    My then-partner and I had been planning a trip to Scotland—a bucket list item we’d set together back in 2013 when we got married. As I enthusiastically dug into the details of the trip (canceled, of course, for 2020), I naturally began to research the distilleries we would visit too. And then I began to watch documentaries about whisky.

    And, well, it all spiraled from there. Quickly.

    I obviously knew about Whiskey Del Bac by then, and I had thought about visiting the distillery on a handful of occasions. The idea of a tour, however, always seemed to come to me in the summer. The distillery’s website warned that the facilities weren’t air conditioned. As a result, they could become extremely warm on Southern Arizona’s needlessly hot summer days.

    For this thick-blooded Michigander, it was thanks, but no thanks.

    I finally booked a tour in late 2021, prompted (if I recall correctly) by yet another encounter with Whiskey Del Back out in Tucson at large. It was only my second distillery tour ever, and my first single malt tour. By the end of the tasting, my vague appreciation for the desert-made spirit had risen exponentially. When they advertised a job posting for tour guides a couple of weeks later, I immediately applied.

    Within a month of visiting Whiskey Del Bac for the first time, I was on the payroll, learning about the distillation process well enough to offer that same knowledge to others. By the time I left, just a short six months later, I was a fully-developed American Single Malt Whiskey enthusiast.

    Whiskey Del Bac remains my favorite American Single Malt Whiskey distillery, in part because of all that it gave me.

    You might have noticed sentimentality as a common thread in the narratives so far this week.

    Yes, I’ll admit it: I’m a sentimental fool.

    I still count many of my Whiskey Del Bac colleagues as friends, even almost three years and 2,000 miles later. Without that experience, without having lived in Tucson and walking through their front door, I probably wouldn’t live in Kentucky, and I absolutely would not be doing this series.

    It helps that they make damn good whiskey too.

    Today’s selection is a little bit of old and new. While the distillery is known for their mesquited single malt, called Dorado, the Classic Single Malt is an unsmoked whiskey modeled after a Speyside Scotch. It’s meant to offer a straightforward whiskey experience, not a campfire, but a bold, enjoyable whiskey experience all on its own.

    Historically, the distillery has always aged its whisky in new American Oak quarter casks, each holding around 15 gallons of spirit. As a tour guide, I used to surmise (and never actually verified) that the sizing was a result of the distillery’s humble origins. Smaller casks casks are much easier to fill, maneuver, and store than the standard barrel—especially for the one-man operation that Whiskey Del Bac was in its earliest days.

    The diminutive size of these barrels, paired with the extreme temperature swings of the Sonoran Desert, typically produces a mature, delicious whiskey in little more than a year.

    The Whiskey Del Bac Classic Bottled in Bond—today’s American Single Malt Whiskey selection—was instead aged for four years. It is made from the same unsmoked new make spirit as the original Classic, carefully produced in a single distilling season. But instead of being poured into small barrels, the new make spirit was loaded ino new Standard American Barrel holding roughly 53 gallons. The casks were stored as legally required for bottled-in-bond, aging for at least four years in a federally bonded warehouse in Tucson, then bottled at 50% ABV.

    Only a small batch of spirit was produced in this way back in 2020, the precious liquid allocated to an experiment with results yet unknown. In 2024, the larger-than-usual barrels were emptied and bottled as a limited release. This small sample sent to me by my friends at the distillery, and has waited until today to be opened and enjoyed.

    The color of the Classic Bottled-in-Bond is slightly darker than the usual Classic whiskey. The flavors, too, are a little bolder. This is unsurprising, considering that it’s bottled at 50% ABV instead of the usual 46%. Beyond that, it is the same dark fruit, sweet caramel, and warm vanilla whiskey that I’ve grown to love over the last several years. It’s just a little more robust and more flavorful—and that’s saying a lot, considering that the original Classic was listed in Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100 Spirits in 2021.

    In short, I love it. If you’re a fan of American Single Malt Whiskeys, you just might too.

    Sláinte, y’all!

    In My Glass

    Whiskey Del Bac Classic Bottled-in-Bond American Single Malt Whiskey

    Hamilton Distiller/Whiskey Del Bac – Tucson, Arizona

    50% ABV; 4 Years Old

    On My Desk

    Royal Futura 600 Manual Typewriter, c. 1960

  • Whiskey Del Bac // Sonoran Single Malt

    Whiskey Del Bac // Sonoran Single Malt

    If you’re not actively looking for Whiskey Del Bac’s award-winning distillery in Tucson, Arizona, you’re not likely to find it. Nestled against the I-10 highway in an industrial park on the west side of town, only an understated decal to announces its front door.

    Of course, for those who know about whisky (or even about craft beer), the massive silo on the back of the building is a dead giveaway that something is brewing inside the otherwise unassuming walls.

    That silo holds some 50,000 pounds of unmalted barley, waiting and ready for a trip into the drum malter inside. Until a couple of years ago, Whiskey Del Bac (more formally known as Hamilton Distillers) only produced American Single Malt Whiskey. Like most modern single malt distilleries, they source the majority of their barley ready to be milled and mashed. But when founder Stephen Paul began to fiddle with the idea of making whiskey, he had a particular outcome in mind, which required him to malt his own barley, even as an amateur distiller.

    That idea is now bottled and named Dorado, a mesquite-smoked single malt whiskey that, as I used to tell guests at the distillery, is more akin to a campfire than a boat fire.*

    That’s a good way to segue into my disclaimer for this post: for six wonderful months between the fall of 2021 and the summer of 2022, I was employed by Whiskey Del Bac as a tour guide. For two or three days every week, I led guests through the history and production and experience of the distillery’s core range of whiskies, including Dorado. I’ve always looked back on that time fondly, and I’m still friends with many of the distillers, managers, and sales folk who remained.

    I am no longer paid by Hamilton Distillers, but I’ve continued to be an enthusiastic advocate for what I truly believe to be one of the best American Single Malt Whiskies money can buy.

    How Whiskey Del Bac Came to Be

    Whiskey Del Bac was founded by Stephen and Amanda Paul, a father-daughter duo who are still involved in the distillery’s strategy and operations.

    Unofficially, it was Stephen’s wife who deserves the credit for this American whiskey.

    Stephen is a carpenter and a furniture maker by trade. For years, he owned a custom furniture shop on Tucson’s Fourth Avenue, a lively and iconic street in the Old Pueblo’s downtown area. Embracing the spirit and the natural resources of the Sonoran Desert (of which Tucson is a part), Stephen frequently employed mesquite wood to build his creations.

    Mesquite is a hardwood that grows across the American Southwest. Both beautiful and dense, it is often compared to fine woods like oak and walnut. That makes it a phenomenal choice for furniture—and for smoking meat, which is, indirectly, how Whiskey Del Bac came to be.

    The Pauls were (and are) scotch whisky drinkers. They also would utilize the off-cuts of mesquite wood from Stephen’s shop to smoke meat at home. Legend says that on one such night in the backyard, with a rich cut of beef (or something similarly meaty) on the smoker and a glass of scotch in her hand, Elaine wondered aloud whether one could smoke malted barley with mesquite rather than peat.

    The rest, as they say, is history.

    Whiskey Del Bac’s Core Range: Smoke, No Smoke, and Rye

    At the spiritual heart of Whiskey Del Bac’s core range is Dorado, a smoky single malt whiskey that’s “mesquited, not peated.” It’s the whiskey for which the distillery is most well-known, at least in Tucson, where the marriage of local ingredients and local whiskey frequently receives high praise. Dorado offers a unique combination of sweet mesquite smoke and the bold vanilla-and-caramel flavors characteristic of new American Oak barrels.

    Two other expressions, the Classic and the Sentinel, round out the distillery’s main offerings.

    The Classic is a straightforward whiskey distilled from exclusively unsmoked barley, modeled in quality after a revered Speyside scotch like those from Macallen or Balvenie. It’s also the best of the distillery’s three main whiskies—and that’s not just my opinion. In the last few years, the Classic has earned an enviable 90 rating from Whisky Advocate and a 93 from sister publication Wine Enthusiast. The latter also listed the Classic in its Top 100 Spirits of 2021.

    Sentinel, the distillery’s singular rye whiskey, is the only one of Whiskey Del Bac’s offerings not fully produced on site in Tucson. The raw spirit is distilled in Indiana before being transported to the desert to rest in Del Bac’s casks. The team uses ex-Dorado barrels to age the spirit, infusing the spicy rye with soft notes of mesquite smoke.

    Beyond the core range, the distillery produces some seven (or more) special releases every year.

    Normandie, Frontera, and Ode to Islay (my personal favorite) are annual limited releases. The three expressions utilize a brandy barrel finish, a Pedro Ximenez sherry cask finish, and a veritable crap-ton of mesquited barley, respectively.

    The remaining releases are seasonal. The Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall Distiller’s Cuts vary from season to season and year to year. As head distiller Mark A. Vierthaler recently explained at a distillery open house, these distiller’s cuts allow his team space for creativity in an industry that otherwise thrives on consistency. The most recent quarterly expression, the Spring 2024 Distiller’s Cut, features “an unsmoked base matured in New American White Oak, finished in Tawny Port barrels, then blended with mesquite smoked American single malt petites eaux from a used bourbon barrel” according to Whiskey Del Bac’s website. The description is a mouthful, but so is the dram.

    Next spring, it’ll be entirely different, a yet-unseen product of the distillers’ imagination.

    Touring Whiskey Del Bac

    Whiskey Del Bac still falls firmly in the “craft” category of distillation, filling a relatively small space with a single 500-gallon pot still and various other necessary equipment.

    When you tour the distillery, you start in a narrow corridor between the shop and offices and the production floor. Here, you’ll see one of Stephen Paul’s handcrafted chairs, early iterations of the whiskey’s labels, and, currently, a handmade mill. During my time as a tour guide, the small room housed Paul’s original and intermediate stills, both curvy copper pots with a capacity of five and 60 gallons, respectively.

    It’s here that you learn about Whiskey Del Bac’s original inspiration, and how Stephen’s drive for creation and quality led him down the path to the whiskey we know today. You’ll also learn about how Amanda, freshly returned from New York City, got involved—specifically by urging her dad to formalize his whiskey-making activities rather than be arrested for illegal moonshining.

    From this ad hoc and ever evolving museum, you move to the back of the building, listening to the creaks and sighs of the equipment and systems. The tour guide, Ian in my case, will explain the malting process, performed here on a drum malter. He talks about the grain and the acrospsires and the smoke that are essential to the malting process, as well as the mechanics of moving it all from one tank to another.

    Then it’s on to the mill and the mash tun and the business of making whiskey in earnest. If you’re lucky (or ask), you can taste the newly fermented distiller’s beer, which is not particularly palatable in terms of beer, but also not terrible either.

    After the still and a discussion of the heads, hearts, and tails, it’s on to the barrels, which includes both the large finishing casks (rhum agricole, sherry, tequila, cognac, brandy, and more) and the standard new American oak quarter casks, inside of which every drop of Whiskey Del Bac begins its maturation journey.

    Somewhere around the barrel area, our tour gropu was graced by the presence of Two-Row, a grey tabby cat who lives at the distillery full time. As head mouser, occasional greeter, and official mascot of Whiskey Del Bac, Two-Row loves to offer her two cents on every tour—and her two front paws to every tasting, often sipping them into unsuspecting guests’ water cups.

    The tour finishes with a brief nod at the bottling area and then a settling into the tasting room, which, if we’re honest, is the primary reason anyone comes on these tours. Spread around two large rustic tables, you can try the three core expressions (Classic, Dorado, and Sentinel), and then, if available, any current limited releases. On my tour we sampled both the Frontera (an unsmoked barley malt finished in PX sherry casks) and the Spring Distiller’s Cut (see above).

    Of course, every good tour exits through the gift shop. Or, in this case, the whiskey shop, where you can stock up on bottles and other bits and bobs. You’ll even find t-shirts emblazoned with the distillery’s mesquite, not peated motto.

    As you shuffle back into the sunshine, laden with whiskey in paper bags, the bright heat and cacti of the Sonoran desert await. The landscape is harsh and unyielding, but among the scrub and the dust you’ll also find strength and beauty. This, truly, is the spirit of Whiskey Del Bac.

    Slàinte, y’all!

    *My fellow Islay whisky drinkers (and haters) will understand that reference…and most of my guests did too.