In this day and age of rapid craft whiskey development, it goes without saying that small, startup distilleries need something to help them stand out in the crowd. Gray Skies Distillery out of Michigan may have in fact found that, recently releasing its Michigan Single Malt Whiskey made from a “peanut butter” malt.
Now, to be clear, no actual peanut butter was used in this malt. The Gray Skies Michigan Single Malt Whiskey’s mash bill is a 100% malted barley distillate crafted from Pilot Malt House’s Peanut Butter Toast malt. According to the malting folks at Pilot, an experiment “with caramelization at relatively high temperatures in the kiln” resulted in a final product which had “the aroma of creamy peanut butter, but the flavor of darkly toasted, whole grain bread.”
For beer made with Peanut Butter Toast malt, it’s said that “the peanut butter notes are clearly discernible and the toastiness is present, but doesn’t dominate.”
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Whether or not peanut butter emerges in the final Gray Skies whiskey taste profile isn’t clear from the information put out by the distillery, but my guess would be it is likely somewhere in the mix. What is known is this cherry wood smoked expression is that it’s very local in nature, being made from grains grown, malted, distilled, and aged within a 15-mile radius of Gray Skies. It is on the young side, aged just six months in smaller format, 15-gallon barrels to “smooth out the edges.”
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Gray Skies’ whiskey will be available in Michigan for now, but the distillery has plans to expand to all the Great Lakes region eventually.
