People talk about the influence of a mash bill on whiskey. In truth, most of that grain flavor is long gone by the time whiskey hits a glass; the overwhelming majority of what you taste comes from the barrel.  The mash is rich with grain flavor, but much of that aroma is lost in the process. Grain aroma evaporates during cooking and mashing, is carried off by bubbles while fermenting, and is separated and discarded with head and tail distillation cuts. Little grain flavor remains.

We had an idea that changes that. Our patent-pending process allows us to capture and retain the full grain aroma that is otherwise lost.  This lets us produce spirits with greater levels and types of grain aroma than are possible in traditional whiskey-making processes.

We’ve used this full-grain process in our award-winning white whiskey and aquavit, but aged whiskey takes time.

Chimera 7-year is our first release of a full-grain whiskey which combines barrel aging with our full grain aroma mashing and distillation process.

This whiskey focuses on the aroma of Caramunich malt, with deeply toasted notes and toffee and biscuit character, over a palate of sweet corn and the subtle spice of rye. It’s a whiskey where true grain aroma of the mash day sits alongside barrel depth and complexity. These specific flavors have never coexisted in a whiskey until now.

So we named it Chimera, a creature made of various parts that wouldn’t normally be combined. And yet here it is.