ASW Distillery was began production in 2016, helmed by Jim Chasteen, Charlie Thompson and Justin Manglitz in Atlanta, though they did release a blended offering out of Charleston, South Carolina in 2011 called American Spirit Whiskey. While a relatively new distillery, ASW looked back to their families’ Scottish, Irish and French backgrounds to guide them toward developing spirits into the modern American market. They offer a wide range of bourbons, ryes and single malts, along with newer takes on white spirits. While they distill most of their offerings themselves, they do have some sourced spirits housed under their Fiddler brand. The ASW Tire Fire is an Islay-style single malt, distilled from peated Scottish barley out of the Highlands. It goes into the barrel – char levels 3 and 4 – at 45ppm. Some versions have been finished in ex-rum casks but the one for this review was not.
Balvenie 14 Year Week of Peat
The Balvenie have been pioneering creative endeavors with scotch for a long time. Taking advantage of a gap in production schedule, the distillery began making peated whisky exactly one week out of the year starting in 2002, which resulted in their first release of Peat Week in 2017 and was a limited release. This Week of Peat, also aged 14 years, is the second part in Balvenie’s Stories range, which was launched in 2019. Balvenie, besides having the legendary David Stewart as malt master, is one of only seven distilleries in Scotland with its own malting floor that is used in at least some of its whisky.
Westland Sherry Wood
Westland Distillery was founded in 2010 in Seattle by Matt Hofmann, and the Westland Sherry Wood is one of the three core offerings, along with the Peated and American Single Malt. Like those offerings, the Sherry Wood was moved to the distillery’s Heritage Collection in 2022 to make room for a new signature single malt expression. The base spirit of this whiskey is the same as the American Single Malt, fermented with Belgian Saison Brewer’s yeast, but then finished in ex-Pedo Ximénez and Oloroso sherry casks for an undisclosed amount of time. While there are supplies out on liquor store shelves and this single malt is still available for purchase via the distillery’s online store as of this review, there is no more being currently produced.