Description: Master Distiller- Greg Metze with 14 years experience at MGP (40+ total distilling)
Unique Ingredients- 95% Wheat (highlights that soft, rich mouthfeel while bringing bright fruit and honey tones), 5% Malted Barley
Slow proofed, no shortcuts- Cut over weeks not days
A MASTER WITH OVER 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE
If you know him, you know he’s the MVP of whiskey. If you don’t it’s because he’s humble in his work but a legend in the category. Old Elk’s Master Distiller, Greg Metze, has over 40 years of distilling experience, 14 of which were spent as the Master Distiller for MGP – a total tenure of 38 years under one roof. During his time at the helm, the US went through a
resurgence in the brown spirits category and his name is likely behind many of the whiskeys you see on your shelf today.
With this masterpiece, Greg applied many techniques he acquired through his hands-on experience distilling over 280 million bottles of rye. Not one to shy away from a challenge, he asked himself, what would happen if he applied the techniques he’s learned and used them with a new ingredient: wheat? The proof is in the liquid, literally and figuratively.
SLOW CUT PROOFING
All whiskey is taken out of the barrel at cask strength. It’s then “proofed” with water to bring it to bottle strength. Traditionally, this process takes 24-48 hours. However, we choose to do it for significantly longer at very small increments.
WHY? When you add water to alcohol, heat is generated. At a distillery scale, it’s hundreds of gallons at a time – which creates enough heat to literally boil off some of the lighter, finer flavors. Our choice is to extend the life of the proofing time by adding the same
total amount of fresh Colorado mountain water over multiple weeks (instead of days) to keep the whiskey cool, allowing us to bottle every last drop of flavor.
