By Mike Feldman
I was recently on duty to buy wine for a dinner with some friends. Most of the guys coming to this shindig were whiskey drinkers, so I was also looking for something a little stronger than wine that might work out as a nice after-dinner drink. Sitting on the whiskey shelf at the liquor store was a slender clear bottle joy that I knew I had to have.
Labeled as a non-aged corn whiskey, the Old Gristmill Authentic American Corn Whiskey by Tuthilltown Spirits is essential a highly refined take on ‘shine. Don’t go digging for rich complexity here. Nose=refined sugar. Palate=refined sugar. This baby is sugary-sweet by whiskey standards, which is exactly what it should be. This is moonshine alright, white-lightnin’, clearer than my tap water, and packaged in a tall, slender, wax capped 375mL bottle that just says “look at me, I’m different,” and it is. What really surprised me here was just how smooth a drink this is. At 40% by volume, you’d expect at least a little burn…nope.
Would this be my go-to everyday whiskey? No. For the bourbon drinker, or for someone looking to learn more about whiskey in general, this is a great bottle to learn about what whiskey is before it goes in a barrel. Short of knowing a good friend with a pot-still and a great old family recipe, this may be the closest you can get to a high quality ‘shine. It just may leave you wondering how any sour-mash whiskey ever makes it in to a barrel to begin with.
