Distiller magazine

128 distiller percentage over time, the young into the old, to create a consistent thread so there are no dramatic changes in fla- vor. You want it to be so gradual that you hardly notice it." Eventually, the distillery stopped using sourced brandy entirely, except for some small limited releases. "We're five and a half years old. It's pretty much all our own now." It's clear that the patience paid off. "I am in love with our brandy," Heron says. "Between our pot stills and our grape blend, the brandy is very uniquely ours. And we use bourbon barrels for aging, which makes a big difference. Copper & Kings is very fruit-forward and has a rambunc- tiousness that's more similar to bourbon or whiskey, but with an unctuous voluptuousness." Economically, the distillery could never have gotten where it is without sourcing. "You just can't make enough money from unaged spirits. To be in the aged brandy business, we had to source." But sourcing and laying the groundwork for the eventual transition was not a silver bul- let. "When we first started, even quite old brandy was very cheap. But we were buying that and laying our own brandy down in barrels for four years at the same time. It takes a lot of money." And if the distillery hadn't had a plan for transitioning to its own distillate, it would have been left high and dry when the aged brandy market dried up. Blending Indiana and Montana Headframe Spirits in Butte, Montana, also got its start by sourcing spirits and also planned from the beginning to transition to its own whiskey over time. Unlike Copper & Kings, they sourced their initial stock from a single distillery — LDI, now known as MGP, in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. "For us the switch was a multiyear process," says founder John McKee. "We had planned it out, but the brand grew pretty fast, and we had to change up that schedule because we weren't putting away enough to meet new demand. We had hoped to make the switch in four years but ultimately did it in about six." Like Copper & Kings, Headframe blended in more of their own distillate over time, finally completing the tran- sition around two years ago. "We continually increased the ratio of our products to MGP until we hit a point where our on-hand whiskey could meet our demand forecast," McKee explains. From a marketing perspective, Headframe was always totally transparent. "e message had always been, 'Look, it's a blend. It's more and more ours every year, and pretty soon it's going to be all ours.' So it was pretty easy to just celebrate with our customers and accounts when it became 100% our own juice," McKee says. By the time the switch was made, Headframe's whiskey was entirely their own straight bourbon, all aged in 53-gallon barrels. McKee loosely matched his bourbon distillate's profile to the sourced stock. "If you run anybody's whiskey through a GC [gas chromatography machine], you can determine, within 80%, their mash bill, their fermentation regime, even what type of yeast they're running. So we looked at what they were sending us and understood how it was being made. We knew that we could not exactly reproduce that, but certainly got close." is made the transition to the distillery's own whiskey essentially seamless. "No one except our most ardent fans, or me, could even tell the dif- ference." For McKee, the very nature of bourbon makes the transition easier. "I know everybody really desperately wants their bourbon to be a unique unicorn, but it's just not. ere's only so much playing around you can do between the limitations on grain and cooperage." For McKee, the real experimentation comes not from bourbon but from single malt: "We really opened the distillery to make a single malt. e very first barrel we laid down eight years ago was our single malt. ere's just so much creativity in a malt, and American single malt is finally getting a little traction as a class." Sourcing its bourbon has allowed Headframe to take its time with its single malt, without ever sourcing. "It was always going to be ours because I really wanted to do something spe- cial," insists McKee. Montana, after all, is one of the top barley-growing states, making it an ideal environment for single malt. "We've done new and used casks, low- and high-proof distillates, finishes, Sherry butts," says McKee. "What we really saw in malt was this ability to get really creative, and I've just never felt that you could do that with bourbon." After many years of preparation, Headframe released its flagship single malt whiskey this March — just in time for the pandemic. "As the state begins to open back up, we're taking it to the market in a more aggressive way, so everybody knows it's ready. ey knew we've wanted to sell this for years." A Different Approach Blending in one's own spirits into sourced stock over time and gradually increasing the proportions is not the only approach to sourcing. Blaum Bros. in Galena, Illinois, took a different tack: ey sourced MGP whiskey but never blended it with their own, instead releasing the sourced whiskey as its own brand until their own whiskey was ready. "To be honest, we never had any intention of doing any sourced products," says co-founder Matt Blaum. "It was never really even something we had talked about. We From a marketing perspective, Headframe was always totally transparent. "The message had always been, 'Look, it's a blend. It's more and more ours every year, and pretty soon it's going to be all ours.'

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