Checking in with Missoula’s forthcoming Montgomery Distillery
Met up and had a pint yesterday with Ryan Montgomery who is starting Montgomery Distillery in Missoula, which is scheduled to open at the end of summer. Some of you may have heard about it in this Missoulian article. If not, Montgomery Distillery will be crafting vodka, gin and, in about three years, whiskey, at 139 E. Main St.
Montgomery recently moved to Missoula from Seattle and before that Malta (not the town in Montana), the tiny country located in the Mediterranean Sea. He’s an investment consultant of sorts and has worked in various countries in Africa. Montgomery was born in Florence (the town in Montana), and grew up in Lewistown.
Originally, Montgomery wanted to open a brewery, but having noticed the proliferation of those ventures, decided to take a different route. He studied distilling in Scotland and Spokane to get a handle on what is to become his new passion.
Montgomery and his wife have a hearing before the Missoula City Council in a few weeks for some zoning permits, and plan to begin construction over the next couple of months.
I’m definitely excited to see how this turns out, he sure seems to have the business sense to make it work.
Stay tuned for future updates.
- Matt Pritchard
Whiskey Review – RoughStock Montana Whiskey
Judging whiskey is a difficult thing to do. So I’m going to leave that to the professionals. But writing about whiskey is great fun, as is reviewing a good whiskey now and then. For some time now I’ve been keeping an eye on the Montana distillery scene. There are numerous vodka makers out there, and I’m hearing rumors of gin and Absynthe, but I’ve been waiting to try a good Montana whiskey. I figured it would be a while since the aging process to produce a decent whiskey takes a while. I was pleasently surprised to find RoughStock Montana Whiskey from RoughStock Distillery in Bozeman on the shelves at Grizzly Liquor recently, so I picked up a bottle for sampling purposes.
This particular bottle is from batch No. 2 and has been aged in barrels for six months. Normally I’d go through and describe the whiskey, but I’m going to follow the general tasting guidelines this time, and I’ll write a little piece at the end to tie it all up.
Bottle: RoughStock Montana Whiskey comes in a great little clear bottle with a stiff cork cap. The label is informative and hand numbered.
Appearance: The whiskey pours a pale straw with barely discernible legs as you swirl it around the glass.
Nose: Served neat, the nose is strong alcohol, wood, resin and new leather. After warming in the glass and adding a few drops of water, the nose is clean vanilla, toasted wood and a tannic, almost Rooibos red tea smell.
Taste: Served neat, the whiskey is initially hot with some astringency on the tongue. As the whiskey sits on the tongue, you pick up some sweet characteristics and a woody spice. After adding a few drops of water, the taste on the tongue includes a hint of citrus and a warm vanilla taste with some nutiness.
Finish: For a younger whiskey, RoughStock is exceptionally smooth. Initially, the heat gives the impression of a harsher taste, though once in the mouth, the heat mellows out and provides some interesting tastes along with the developed flavors. This whiskey finishes fairly dry and clean with little or no astringency.
I’ve had a lot of young whiskey this year, but the common denominator between them was a general greenness on the taste. RoughStock Montana Whiskey was different. Where the other whiskeys were astringent with lots of heat, RoughStock was initially hot with some spice but smooth on the swallow. I detected none of the greenness that I usually encounter in a young whiskey. The color was interesting in that the pale straw almost gave the impression of a bit of cloudiness, though holding it up to a pure light source, I could detect no cloudiness. We sampled this whiskey out of Riedel Scotch-tasting glasses, which provided a nice bright nose in spite of the initial heat. For a cocktail mix, we tried a Whiskey Sour. The bright and hot whiskey stood up well to the fresh-squeezed lemon, even offering up a little more of what I thought were some citrus like notes on the whiskey.
Priced at $52, I felt like this whiskey is a good bet. It’s boutique, and it’s only going to get better from here. Congratulations to the folks over at RoughStock for doing honor to the state by distilling such a great whiskey as the first one in the state since prohibition. I picked up this bottle at Grizzly Liquor.
Prost,
GG
Great-looking label on this whiskey
This pale straw whiskey drinks exceptionally smooth for something so young.
“Grain to Glass” Boutique Booze is getting big
Check out this great Associated Press article featuring Spokane’s Dry Fly Distillery.
Prost,
GG