WhistlePig Roadstock Rye Whiskey

A premium Rye, aged in a truck on Route 66.

WhistlePig is shorthand for innovation, pushing forward and upgrading. It’s also an awesome name and a fun image to have in one’s mind. The story started in 2007 when the founding crew bought a farm in Vermont. They teamed up with Master Distiller Dave Pickerell and discovered a stock of a decade-old Canadian Whisky. They finished and bottled it at the farm and wrote the first chapter in their Whiskey-making tale, focusing on the premium Rye category. WhistlePig’s principle is taking old school approaches, adapting them to new ways, and looking for the best methods to create booze. Surrounded by goats, sheep, horses, bees, and yes, pigs, wonderful expressions emerge from the farm. Their most famous one, the 10-Year-Old even appeared in Breaking Bad.

For WhistlePig Roadstock Rye Whiskey, the team literally blazed their own path. They loaded up a semi-trailer with barrels and hit the Route 66 from Chicago to L.A. – with the world’s first rolling rickhouse in tow. Before the journey, half of the stock was put into Bordeaux blend casks from Jordan Winery with the other half left in their original virgin oak barrels. In Paso Robles, California, they stopped at one of the largest craft breweries in the country, Firestone Walker Brewing Company, to transfer the balance of the Whiskey into Firestone’s Imperial Stout, Imperial Blonde Ale and Experimental Ale barrels for the long journey back to Vermont. After a couple of weeks and 6,000 miles, the liquid was finally home. The team married the unique finishes and even put custom rubber tire toppers on the bottles. The resulting combo of well-balanced flavors of raspberry jam, brown sugar, and toasted cedar is even more special than the journey itself.