Whiskey Del Bac Mesquite Smoked Dorado

A traditional Scottish-style Single Malt from the American Southwest that lets you taste the terroir in every sip.

The idea of crafting a Single Malt Whisky in the Southwest United States is crazy. But that is exactly the idea that inspired Stephen Paul and his daughter Amanda back in 2006. That’s when they started experimenting with a small, five-gallon alembic pot-still from Portugal while running his custom furniture business in Tucson, Arizona. By 2011 they had learned enough to take the next step, incorporating Hamilton Distillers and buying a forty-gallon still. Now they have a 500-gallon still and a full production house where they do everything on site — from malting to bottling — to produce their range of southwestern Single Malts.

Single Malts from Scotland dry their malted barley using various methods. The most famous are the "peated" malts which take on a very distinctive earthy-briny-iodine & ash aroma and flavor. The Great Sonoran Desert in Arizona is famous for using Mesquite wood to smoke everything from chili peppers to BBQ brisket. Stephen thought that using mesquite wood smoke to toast the malted barley would bring a unique Arizona style to the classic Scottish Whisky technique. Whiskey Del Bac Mesquite Smoked Dorado Single Malt is the fulfillment of that vision at 45% ABV without chill filtration.

Smartass Corner:
Hamilton Distillers uses a type of local mesquite wood called velvet mesquite — Prosopis Velutina — that grows wild in southern Arizona.