Smarch Select Whiskey from Brother Justus

If you happened to be at Smoke Out this last weekend, maybe you saw someone (ahem) passing a new bottle around. Making its public debut on Sunday was a new limited release blend of single malt whiskey: SMarch Select from Brother Justus. In my very biased and not-neutral-at-all opinion, it’s amazing. 

Earlier this year, I had the chance to hang out with James Jefferson, director of production for Brother Justus, in the back rooms of the Minneapolis distillery. Along with owner Phil Steger, Jefferson and the team wanted to test out a new program that would allow them to make custom blends. In 2017 I traveled to Maker’s Mark with the Bellecour team while they created a custom barrel of Private Select, which is something that notable bars around the country have done. So I was interested to see how one of our local distillers might go about doing it their own way.

For this program, it’s all about the blending.

Sidebar: As a massive fan of Japanese whisky, I am of the belief that the art of the bottle comes from the act of weaving and blending all the elements. Master Blenders believe: “… one needs to be able to communicate with whiskies that can not speak.”

I did my best. Sitting among the small barrels of aging whiskey, Jefferson and I pulled samples. Each oak barrel brings its own flavor, its own nuance that can change depending on what day it was filled, where it was sitting in the aging room, what weather we had the day it was sampled, not to mention the different qualities it embodied from the moment it was pulled from the still (another day we’ll talk about the head, the heart, and the tail). 

We sipped and made notes on which flavor was promising, what showed up as dominant in the mouth. Jefferson asking me all the while: do you like it, does it feel like your whiskey, does it hit you in the right places for it to carry your name?

I’m not about sweet, but I love that wooden vanilla bit that comes with toasted oak, and I wanted something that would give spice without telegraphing PSL. Somehow, we got buttered toast in there too. We moved back and forth adding and re-configuring, pulling back on some notes while amping up others, until we both agreed we’d hit what I think is a winner winner whiskey dinner. She’s not shy, this American single malt is 121 proof. 

Whiskey is a conversation, and after I sipped the first bottle, it felt like it was something personal and yet something to be shared. And: it needed to do some work. I’m not making a dollar off the bottles we blended, but a donation to the Memorial Blood Centers is being made in the name of my mom, who did get a sip of this before she took her leave. 

If you missed it this weekend, you can reserve a bottle online. It’s available at the Brother Justus Distillery starting on Thursday and you can get a taste at the bar. It is a limited batch, so I can’t promise how long it will stick around!