Colkegan Single Malt Whiskey

A Scotsman in New Mexico.

If this bottle were made in Scotland, it would be Whisky, but since it’s a product of the good old US ingenuity and made the American way, it’s a Whiskey. But don’t hold it against it: it still has a Scottish soul, it’s just made differently. Namely they used mesquite instead of peat while smoking their malted barley. The result the Santa Fe Spirits wanted to achieve with this is a smooth and balanced complexity of flavor. By the way, mesquite is one of the most expensive woods in America and it’s found in the desert. A mature tree can cost more than a grand, but it’s worth all its money when creating a complex Whiskey.

Colkegan Single Malt is matured in American oak barrels for two years seven thousand feet up in the desert, more specifically in climate-controlled warehouse where temperatures range from freezing to steaming. And they ain’t doing it just for fun: variations in humidity and temperature bring unprecedented complexity out of the Spirit. It’s the tradition from the Old Continent and fresh ideas from the New World that made this bottle and it’s not surprising that it earned the second-highest score among all American Whiskeys back in 2015.