IN MARCH 2019, BOTTLE LOGIC BREWING, A CULT maker of imperial stouts based out of Anaheim, California, visited Interboro Spirits & Ale in Brooklyn, New York. The plan was to brew a collaboration beer, but the Californians took interest in the copper pot still lurking in one corner of the brewery. ‘They said, “Sure, let’s make a beer, but more importantly, let’s make a whisky”,’ says Jesse Ferguson, Interboro’s co-founder, brewer, and distiller.
This wouldn’t require much extra work. To produce whisky or beer, you start by mashing grains: taking barley, corn, and the like, combining it with water, and then heating the mixture. Then things typically diverge. For beer, you add hops and yeast; for traditional whisky, you add yeast and, once fermented into distiller’s wash, you distil it.
While…
