WHY BARN-TO-BOTTLE IS WHISKEY'S HOTTEST NEW TREND

Drink locally with these seven standout craft whiskeys. 

JARED PAUL STERN  AUG 5, 2016

AS SEEN IN MAXIUM MAGAZINE

#3 in the line-up: J. Carver Bourbon Whsikey

#3 in the line-up: J. Carver Bourbon Whsikey

This tasty artisanal, small-batch bourbon has a mash bill of 75 percent corn and 25 percent rye, both grown on farms near the distillery in Minnesota.

The farm-to-table movement in high-end restaurants may be old hat by now, but its corollary in craft spirits is just getting started. 

“Barn-to-bottle” whiskeys well worth sipping are springing up across the country, from New England to the High West. (Check out seven of our favorites in the slideshow HERE.)

The crucial difference between these down-home ingredients and production, which tend to yield bottles with a bit more soul. Vermont’s WhistlePig is one of the very few outfits to do the entire process in one place, from harvesting the rye to distilling, aging and bottling the final product. 

They even make their own whiskey barrels from oak trees felled right on the farm. This lends the elixir and others of its ilk something akin to terroir, that taste of the earth—specifically, the patch it comes from— so highly prized by oenophiles.