Raleigh's Lonerider Brewing Company announced the launch of its sister craft-spirits company, Lonerider Spirits, which will debut with a sherry-cask-aged bourbon in North Carolina this September.
Rather than create its own distillery, Lonerider Spirits has tapped N.C. distillers to bring the company's vision—driven by Lonerider Spirits chairman Sumit Vohra (who is also Lonerider Brewing Company's founder and CEO) and president Chris Mielke—to life. The pair are self-described whiskey aficionados who felt the time was right to bring their craft-distilling dream to fruition.
"The craft spirits industry is in its infancy, basically where the craft brewing industry was eight or nine years ago," Mielke says. "Sumit saw tremendous growth in the beer industry, and I said, there’s an opportunity here for craft spirits. At the height of Prohibition, there were over ten thousand distilleries in the U.S., and now there’s about sixteen hundred to two thousand. Back in Prohibition days, every town basically had its own distillery; maybe every town now has its own brew pub. But that level of growth can happen."
"Brew-stillery, I like to call it," Mielke continues. "We’re trying to pair whiskey from a brewery with a distillery. It’s a new thing rearing its head now, with a lot of breweries making their own whiskies and then selling it. It’s a natural evolution of the game."
For the release of their first spirit, which will be bottled in Durham, the duo incorporated an old-world technique of aging whiskey in sherry casks, which Mielke says helps round out the edges of the whiskey, meaning it lessens the intensity so that it doesn't burn when sipped. That smoothness makes it an ideal whiskey for sipping, one Mielke hopes will appeal to both wine drinkers and bourbon drinkers. He describes the balanced flavor profile has having "a lot of cinnamon, cloves, and toffee on the nose, waffle cone and cacao on the body, and leather, toasted oak, and pepper on the finish."
The "brew-stillery" moniker makes sense when you consider that the ingredients for making beer and whiskey are essentially the same, minus the hops. It's why Mielke and Vohra think it makes sense to translate some of the unique grains used in Lonerider beer recipes into whiskies; they're currently experimenting with the ratio of grains used in their best-selling Sweet Josie Brown Ale to create a whiskey.
"It's the most promising," Mielke says. "There's nice chocolate in it; there's almost like a malted milk ball feel to it."
Mielke says they'll tap Lonerider Brewing Company's distribution network to help promote widespread availability of Lonerider Spirit's first release in restaurants and bars, and they are working to get the product into ABC stores state-wide.
"We hope to really start quarterly releases of the next spirit and keep people engaged and get them back into the stores to see what’s new," Mielke says. "They might see their favorite beers made into a whiskey. It’s great to be able to cater to the great fanbase that Lonerider has."
Lonerider Spirits has also launched a summer Kickstarter campaign in hopes of raising $20,000 to put toward first-year production and marketing costs. Pledges start at $5, and supporters will receive exclusive Lonerider Spirits Kickstarter campaign swag and notifications about event experiences. Click here to donate or learn more.
