Michter's Sour Mash Barrel Strength

“Sour mash” typically refers to a popular method of whiskey making in which a portion of previously fermented mash is used in a new batch. It helps ensure flavor consistency — which isn’t, in fact, sour. In the case of Michter’s, it also refers to a type of whiskey whose mashbill doesn’t contain at least 51% of any single grain. Michter’s added US*1 Sour Mash to its permanent roster in 2012; nearly a decade and a half later, the distillery is releasing its first-ever Barrel Strength Sour Mash as a limited edition.

Michter’s history with Sour Mash actually goes back to its previous incarnation in Pennsylvania, where the distillery had operated under different names since 1753. Michter’s current president, Joe Magliocco, had a summer job selling Michter’s in the late 1970s. “The most popular type produced by the Pennsylvania distillery was Michter’s Sour Mash,” he remembers. “It was a wonderful whiskey that, while not being classified as a rye — which would have been marketing death in those days — was made with a fair amount of rye grain.”

The Pennsylvania Michter’s went out of business in the late 1980s; several years later, Magliocco bought the name and revived the brand in Kentucky. He remembers, “We wanted to honor the heritage of the brand with an interesting and delicious whiskey.” 

Magliocco got Michter’s then-master distiller, Willie Pratt, to try to recreate the Sour Mash expression. “While we did not have any recipes for the whiskey produced in Pennsylvania,” Magliocco says, “we did have a lot of old bottles that we could use to target the Pennsylvania version and then compare to the newer version we were creating. “After years of working on it, Willie called me one day and said, ‘I got it!’ I asked Willie, ‘Is it as good as the Pennsylvania Sour Mash?’  He said, ‘No, it’s better.’”

Barrel Strength Sour Mash shines a brighter spotlight on an expression that fans of higher-proof and cask-strength whiskies may have typically overlooked at its standard 43% ABV. The barrel-strength expression is made in exactly the same way, using exactly the same mashbill, as standard Sour Mash — the only difference is that it’s not proofed down with water before bottling. McKee notes that “the average proof of the batches being offered for the first release is 55.75% ABV, which is significantly higher” than the original Sour Mash. 

Barrel Strength Sour Mash follows in the footsteps of Michter’s Barrel Strength Rye, which debuted in 2015, and Barrel Strength Bourbon, which bowed in 2017. All barrel-strength expressions are limited editions that are released periodically; the bourbon is currently available exclusively at Michter’s Fort Nelson distillery. Exact quantities of the sour mash are known only to Michter’s, but given that it’s a first-time release from one of America’s most acclaimed whiskey distilleries, it may not stick around for long.