Still Austin

Founded in 2015, Still Austin Whiskey Co. was the first whiskey distillery in the city limits of Austin, Texas to operate since Prohibition. It's a 100% “grain to glass” distillery where milling, mashing, fermenting, distilling, maturation and bottling all takes place in-house. All of the grains are sourced from Texas too, which can sometimes increase costs of production.

The Master Blender is Nancy Fraley, who has several years experience in whiskey making and well as working with other spirits such with brandy (more on this later...).

'The Musician' was launched in 2020 as a core bottling featuring artwork on the label by Texas-born artist Marc Burckhardt. The mashbill contains 70% non-GMO corn, 25% Elbon rye and 5% malted Wildfire barley, with a minimum of 2 years aging in virgin American oak. Bear in mind though, the Texas climate is pretty extreme and as a result there's much more interaction between spirit and wood than you would find in the likes of Scotland - as well as more evaporation.

During maturation, water is also slowly added to reduce the ABV inside the cask, as opposed to cutting it to strength during the bottling process. This is a common technique in brandy production (see, told you we'd come back to that) and the team claim that whereas alcohol pulls out more astrignent flavours from the wood, water pulls out sweeter notes.

It's an unusual and more time-consuming process but one that in this case results in a brilliantly balanced Bourbon that edges more towards vanilla and toffee without dominating notes of chili flakes and cracked black peppercorns. There's an elegance to this whiskey featuring hints of orange peel and pecans with a finish that is light but lengthy, amking this a joy to drink neat.