The 10 Most Important American Single Malt Whiskeys Ever Released
In 2016, a group of craft distillers producing single malts within the United States gathered for a summit to set a path toward the establishment of an official, recognized, and regulated category. It took nine years, and as much lobbying and cajoling as fermenting and distilling, but the group got the job done when the TTB finally established an official standard of identity for American Single Malt Whisky in December 2024, with the rules coming into effect at the start of 2025.
At long last, there’s a defined structure, and a resulting legal label that provides footing in the marketplace and understanding for consumers: American Single Malt Whisky is made in the U.S. from 100 percent malted barley, distilled entirely at one distillery, matured in oak casks up to 700 liters in capacity, bottled at 80 proof or more, and distilled to no more than 160 proof.
“When we first started laying down our whiskey in 1997, there were just under two dozen craft distilleries in operation in the United States; today, there are over 3,000,” says Lance Winters, the master distiller for St. George Spirits. The American Single Malt Whiskey Commission itself lists 115 producers that were a part of its regulatory efforts.
“When I poured at my first WhiskyFest in San Francisco in 2000, almost no one wanted to taste a California single malt,” Winters says, referring to the inaugural release of the distillery’s Lot series. “A quarter-century later, along with official recognition from the TTB, there’s now an incredible buzz for American single malt, and producers all over the country trying to make their mark on the category.”
Yes, American Single Malt Whisky (ASM) is now an official Thing, and if you’re new to the category, there’s much to explore. This fall saw the back-to-back releases of two era-defining ASM exemplars celebrating their own landmark anniversaries, with St. George’s Lot 25 and Westland Distillery’s Garryana 10th edition, aged for 10 years.
“The release of Lot 25 feels like a celebration of nearly 30 years of sticking to our ideals,” Winters says. “When we began making single malt in the mid-1990s, people questioned the idea of a domestically produced single malt. It was a slog for a while, as the whiskey-drinking world didn’t know what to make of a single malt from California. That said, we believed in what we were doing and stuck with it.”
Lot 25 is rich and layered, with dark chocolate and burnt caramel interlaced with peanuts and tropical fruits. Garryana 10 displays the well-matured, signature, smoky barbecue-esque flavor derived from its namesake oak variety. Both of these releases are testaments to the idea that this is no longer a fledgling category. Rather, that longstanding, innovative, and forward-thinking producers that have been leading the charge for a decade or two, and longer, are worthy of global stature and standing.
“I believe that the TTB recognition of American single malt as a category is important primarily to give emerging American single malt producers guidelines to work within,” says Dave Smith, the head distiller and blender for St. George. “The distillers who have been here have already been doing the work. There’s a great deal of talent who have been working for years to contribute to the American single malt landscape.”
Here are 10 of the finest and most important American single malts a few of those talented individuals have created, listed in alphabetical order.
Cedar Ridge The QuintEssential
Cedar Ridge Distillery’s The QuintEssential — the name points to the Quint family, the distillery’s founders and owners — was first released in 2020, and quickly became a favorite of in-the-know ASM drinkers. Miles Munroe, the master blender for Westward Whiskey, calls the bottling “outrageously good” and “perfectly balanced.” The series puts the winery-distillery’s full smattering of cask types to use, culminating in an ever-evolving mother batch — essentially a solera using a single vat they pull from but never empty — for ongoing releases. The result is nuanced and multifaceted, showcasing a powerful depth of flavor that signals to the category’s potential.
“The real magic for our single malt happens during secondary maturation,” master distiller Murphy Quint says. “This is where we leverage our unique advantage as a winery and distillery, utilizing over 40 different wine and specialty casks from around the globe. This healthy inventory of different secondary casks provides us with many different flavor profiles that we can work with, and it gives us the option of releasing interesting single barrels or creating unique blends.” His personal favorite was the QuintEssential Special Release Pete & Sherri Married.
Colkegan Single Malt
Colkegan Single Malt, the namesake bottling of Santa Fe Spirits founder and distiller Colin Keegan, brought its birthplace to the forefront via the introduction of mesquite-smoked malt whiskey. Scotland has its peat, why can’t an American-made product use something closer to home? The distillery’s lineup was rebranded this year to offer a range of single malt offerings under The Original Santa Fe Whiskey banner, but there’s no changing or denying the seminal impact of its earlier bottlings.
“They’ve shown American consumers the benefits of utilizing smoked malts,” Quint says. Not to mention smoky flavors with a specific sense of place, adding an important sense of regionality and local roots for American single malts. For those interested in exploring more of a Southwest, smoked single malt, look no further than Del Bac Whiskey in Tucson, Ariz., and its mesquite-smoked wares, as well as Balcones Distilling’s Brimstone, smoked with Texas scrub oak.
Jack Daniel’s & Jim Beam
In 2023, Jack Daniel’s and Jim Beam each released their own single malt whiskeys. Why are they included on this list dedicated to the most important ASM bottlings of all time? Because even though such offerings were little more than rounding-error side quests for the behemoth producers, their decisions to produce, mature, and release such products were tacit approval of the category on the whole. When the big players got in the fun, there was recognition that American Single Malt Whisky couldn’t be ignored any longer, for any stragglers, slow adopters, and holdouts that may have been remaining.
McCarthy’s Oregon Single Malt
This is where it all began. McCarthy’s is touted as the first-ever commercial bottling of an American Single Malt Whisky, with its initial release by founder Steve McCarthy stretching all the way back to 1996. His Clear Creek Distillery was founded a decade prior, in 1985.
“The O.G.!” Quint says with delight. “Not only is it amazing whiskey, but it essentially paved the way for an entirely new category.” McCarthy’s and the full Clear Creek portfolio have been a part of Hood River Distillers since 2014. There are now 3-year-old and 6-year-old editions of the single malt, as well as cask finishes. For his favorite, Munroe points to McCarthy’s Rum Barrel Aged 6 Years, a private barrel pick released by Single Malt Frontier, thanks to a shared connection via its use of Casa Magdalena rum cask. “It’s an absolute flavor extravaganza,” he says.
St. George Lot Series
A quarter-century of St. George’s Lot series is an accomplishment worth celebrating. Whether you wanted to tab the first release as the most important ever, this year’s silver anniversary achievement, or perhaps the series as a whole, there’s no wrong selection.
Lot 25 incorporates 28 different casks, the oldest of which clocks in at 13 years, as well as a dose of what the distillery dubs SM-01, the very first barrel of whiskey the distillery laid down with its Lot mash bill back in 1997. The beauty of the Lot series is in its constant churn and evolution, and the staggering number of barrel types — agricole, apple brandy, and California “Sauternes,” oh my — that Winters and now Smith have to play with while working to incorporate specific flavor notes and qualities to the greater blend.
“As Dave goes into his barrel selection process, he’s now got a diverse palette of nearly 2,000 barrels to select from to paint each release,” Winters says. “Watching the progression from one Lot to the next is like looking at a family photo album: You can see the family resemblance all the way through, even if the appearance changes from year to year.”
Stranahan’s Snowflake Series
Coveted wine club releases sell out like Taylor Swift concerts on Ticketmaster, and beer geeks have been lining up for limited editions and annual allotments for eons. When Stranahan’s began its Snowflake series in 2007 and continued hammering home the unique project with a release party each year, it eventually was able to force American whiskey lovers to do the same.
“Stranahan’s created the special release model that many American distilleries follow to this day,” says Quint, who worked at the distillery before returning home to Iowa. “The flavor profile changes with every release, and it generates a lot of press. It’s been imperative to the category’s development.” Snowflake really began to hit its groove about a decade ago under the direction of former master distiller Rob Dietrich, with revelers lining up all night in the frigid Denver environs for their chance to nab a bottle. While ASM is now on every liquor store shelf in the country, the impact of tent pole bottles like this can’t be overlooked.
The Notch
The Notch from Triple Eight Distillery, housed within Cisco Brewers on Nantucket, is your favorite American Single Malt Whisky distiller’s favorite American Single Malt Whisky. It’s the ultimate American whiskey lover’s handshake, as the bottle is little known to the public at large. I first came across it about eight or nine years ago while serving as a judge for the American Distilling Institute, but even then, I was late to the party.
Triple Eight began its single malt production in 2000, and waited until 2008 to release The Notch. Patience, friends. Now, they’re able to slap a 15-year-old or 12-year-old age statement on the side of different expressions, a miraculous feat on this side of the pond. “Started by brewers, this true O.G. of American Single Malt uses a whole range of spirits barrels while aging on a tiny island in New England, and they use the highly prized Maris Otter barley, like any brewer should,” Munroe says.
Virginia Distillery Co. Courage & Conviction
Most American craft distillers take a decidedly American approach to their production of single malt. On the other hand, Virginia Distillery Co. was always peering back to Scotland from their inception, a fact anyone could see from its showpiece stillhouse, home to two glimmering Forsyths pot stills. Their production methodology was also bestowed upon them by the late Dr. Jim Swan, an industry legend.
“I think VDC has done an unbelievable job of showing American Single Malt drinkers the range of flavor profiles that can be explored within the category,” Quint says. That includes with their popular Brewer’s Coalition beer barrel series, and other expressions using cider and coffee casks. But after years of sourcing Scotch and maturing it in Virginia, Courage & Conviction gets the nod here, as their fully made in Virginia flagship. It’s aged for a minimum of five years and is blended between several cask types, including first-fill bourbon, sherry, and cuvée casks.
Westland Garryana
It’s hard to explain how groundbreaking Westland’s first release of Garryana was back in 2016. My mind was blown when then master distiller Matt Hofmann shared a preview from a sample bottle he was toting around in his bag while pounding the legislative pavement in D.C. during the early American Single Malt Whiskey Commission days.
This was true sense of place, and if the folks in Scotland and the rest of the world couldn’t see that this was something entirely new and different and novel and exciting, well, they could go and shove it. Aged in native Northwest oak, with intrinsic flavors and qualities that are immediately noticeable, this whiskey has left an indelible imprint on the ASM landscape from the moment it debuted.
“The past 10 years have shown distilleries willing to source ingredients that encapsulate their area: from barley and malting to cask types, and I’m proud to see American Single Malt designated on shelves and bottles,” says Shane Armstrong, Westland’s master blender.
The distillery may now be celebrating Garryana’s 10th anniversary, but they aren’t thinking about stopping their journey. “The 10th edition bottling places a 10-year age statement at the forefront, but this is more of an anchor and less of an end point,” Armstrong says. “A number to note an approach that has stretched beyond a decade. Expressing our region means a great deal to us, and Garryana powerfully proves that.”
Westward Whiskey Milestone
ASM producers sure do love a punny, eponymous name, don’t they? Though truth be told, Westward Whiskey master blender Miles Munroe claims he fought against the Milestone tag before succumbing to its inevitability. He need not be bashful, as it’s his pinnacle achievement thus far. The annual release whose third edition dropped this fall is based on a proper sherry bodega-style solera system, incorporating 21 barrels with several criaderas, individual rows of barrels within the whole of the solera, feeding into it.
Each Milestone incorporates some of the distillery’s oldest and most prized casks, along with a range of flavor profiles from different finishes and sources. As an aside, the industry and American Single Malt Whisky fans everywhere just received some much needed excellent news as Westward was able to fend off bankruptcy by selling its assets to a group of private investors.
“They’ve done an incredible job of educating consumers on the West Coast,” Quint says collectively of Westland and Westward. “Not only do they both create great single malt, but they do an incredible job of explaining how, and more importantly, why.” It’s what American Single Malt Whisky is all about.
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