Liberty Call 4 Grain Whiskey Throws Out Whiskey Playbook

San Diego, California, is becoming almost famous for its craft beer scene as its sunny skies, and its clear that craft beer has had a serious influence on Liberty Call Distilling. This start-up distillery has recently launched a new, promising four grain whiskey touched by beer love.

The Liberty Call 4 Grain Whiskey is, as the name implies, made up of four separate grains. Its mash bill includes, in equal proportions, corn, wheat, rye and barley. Where the beer influence comes in is that, according to Liberty Call,

we decided to make it off the grain like a beer in keeping with the San Diego Beer Scene, and we even use a local beer yeast for an added kick of flavor.

Beer yeast in the whiskey? That’s certainly a little different from many other craft offerings. That’s not the only thing that makes this spirit an outlier, however, as Liberty Call then took the resulting distillate and aged it in a solera-style system, a strategy employed by only a handful of American distilleries. They also brought a little technology into the mix, teaming up with a local tech firm “to use an in-barrel agitator that not only speeds up the aging process, but pulls out more flavors from the barrel.”

And finally, as if all of this wasn’t enough, they then added “specially toasted honey-combed woods to enhance the flavors.” Specifically, they decided upon

Cherry and Yellow Birch, and age a small part of each distillation with the honey-combed wood. We then blend the Cherry and Ash flavors back into the Solera Barrel Aged Whiskey, proof and bottle.

So, to recap, this 90 proof, unfiltered whiskey contains four grains in the mash bill plus a bit of beer yeast; was aged in a solera style barrel system; was age enhanced by technology; and was exposed to multiple wood types as part of the aging process. Has Liberty Call rewritten the rule book for mad science whiskies? We will have to try it to see.