When Amanda & I started this adventure nearly 6 years ago, I never dreamed there would be such a boom in American Whiskey. Our vision was always to bring the rich traditions of Irish and Scottish whiskey making home. Amanda’s family is Irish, and our last name, Swift, traces back to a Scottish mail courier. Having both been born in Texas, we wanted to grow the tradition here so we started our little distillery on 3 ½ acres in the Hill Country.
Amanda loved the first trip to Dublin, and felt an instant connection. While we were on the Guinness beer tour, she became intrigued by the science of brewing (she was working for a university lab at the time). Wanting to learn more about whiskey and our families we began traveling to the distilleries in Ireland & Scotland. The more we visited it became apparent how subtle differences could greatly affect the flavor. On top of this, the way barrel cooperages handle the empty barrels before they reach the distillery could greatly impact the flavor. For that reason, we use traditional coopering techniques with all-natural materials.
Whiskey has been distilled in Ireland and Scotland for over 500 years now! Generations of distillers have passed down secrets and refined their techniques. We’ve been fortunate to learn and work with some amazing and tremendously knowledgeable people along the way. And we’re passionate about absorbing all the information we can to continue the tradition in its pure form… by hand, from scratch.
America certainly has a rich history with their whiskey too! And we spent a good amount of time on the Kentucky Bourbon Trial before we finally selected our barrels, but we’ll have to save that for another post.
Thank y’all for the local support!
Nick