Among giants standing 300-350 feet, whiskey is being made. Named after the vast stretch of those giants, Redwood Empire Whiskey is unique for multiple reasons. Growing, faster than the redwood trees grow, Redwood has a nice profile of different whiskeys. We sat down with their master distiller, Jeff Duckhorn to talk all things whiskey, distilling, and the Redwood Empire.
Redwood Empire Whiskey Master Distiller Jeff Duckhorn | Old-Fashioned Football (Ep. 113)
Jeff’s background is definitely a unique one. You may think distillers all head to a distilling school, do some work as an apprentice, before taking over as a distiller. That wasn’t the case for Jeff’s journey. In fact, he’s described more as an accountant gone rogue. Which can give all of us working our 9-5 a little hope for something different to come along in life.
Jeff walks us through his story from accounting to the moment he was basically saying, “Put me in coach!” He hasn’t looked back since being Redwood’s distiller since Day 1!
Distilling And Blending
It seems like a lot of the distilleries that are popping up are either 100% distilling their whiskey or 100% sourcing to blend. A unique thing about Redwood Empire is that they do both. Their three main whiskeys are blends of their whiskey and sourced whiskey, from the bourbon and rye to the American whiskey.
It’s something that makes Jeff’s job more exciting, he tells us. The ability to be able to do both, and even crunch the numbers of the blends, is something that brings a lot of enjoyment to his job.
The Still
We’ve seen a lot of stills through the Old-Fashioned Football podcast. However, this one is definitely unique. They have continuous micro-column still designed by a company out of Butte, Montana. It also has a two-column distillation process. Jeff walks us through exactly how it works. All stills are beautiful, but this one is both beautiful and unique.
Sustainability
A distillery named after a stretch of trees and inspired by John Muir naturally has a focus on sustainability. Not only does the distillery work on limiting the resources they have to use but the mash also goes to feed livestock. On top of that, they plant a tree for every bottle sold. Tune in to the podcast to hear about their partnerships and where those trees get planted.
It is something we really, really liked about their distillery. The commitment to give back and to continue to honor John Muir and nature fits right along with what our values align with. As Jeff said, with everything that divides our country, very few people hate trees. To date they’ve helped plant 1.2 million trees.
Additional Information
For more information on Redwood Empire Whiskey, you can visit their website here. You can also visit their Instagram here. We will be tasting and reviewing some of their whiskey on next week’s show. Make sure you pick up a bottle to have a drink with us.
Time Stamps
00:00 – Intro
2:37 – Guest Intro
8:22 – Accountant to Distiller
19:00 – Redwood Empire Name
26:45 – John Muir / Labels
29:45 – Planting Trees
31:20 – Sustainability
33:00 – Whiskey, Distilling and Blending
39:48 – The Sourced
41:48 – The Still
48:00 – Redwood Empire Products
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