Berkshire Mountain Two Lanterns American Whiskey Continues Samuel Adams Love Affair

Berkshire Mountain Distillers, a Massachusetts-based distillery that’s something of a craft pioneer due to being founded in 2007, seems to have a love affair with fellow in-state craft beer pioneer Samuel Adams. The two have a history of whiskey making collaboration together, mostly centered around the latter providing the former beer to distill whiskey from. The latest result of said partnership is also one of the oldest whiskies to date from it, the new over four years old Two Lanterns American Whiskey.

Berkshire Mountain Two Lanterns American Whiskey, according to the distillery, is the result of the triple distilling of Samuel Adams’ flagship Boston Lager back in 2012. Subsequent aging then happened at Berkshire’s facility in so-called “vintage” bourbon barrels. These barrels, interestingly, are not done yet, as once they are fully emptied they will be handed off to the brewery for use with a yet-to-be-named barrel-aged beer.

“After anxiously waiting for more than four years, we are excited to finally share the fruits of our teamwork for craft whiskey and beer lovers to enjoy,” said Berkshire Mountain Distillers founder Chris Weld in a prepared statement. “Two Lanterns American Whiskey is truly a labor of love and we had a lot of fun working with Jim and the Sam Adams team.”

“After barrel aging for over four years, we can’t wait for drinkers to finally have the chance to enjoy Chris’ Two Lanterns whiskey distilled with Boston Lager,” added Jim Koch, Samuel Adams founder and brewer. “Chris is doing a lot of really cool things and it was fun and interesting for us to see how the ingredients and flavor in the beer influenced the final whiskey.”

Plans call for Two Lanterns, which will retail around $120, to be available starting this month in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Georgia. There’s not much in the way of official tasting notes on it, but what there is we present below. The name of the whiskey, by the way, “was inspired by the two lanterns lit at Old North Church in Boston in 1775 that signaled to the Sons of Liberty that the British were coming by sea to Lexington and Concord to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock and hang them as traitors.”

The distilled Samuel Adams Boston Lager has distinct notes of malt and piney hop flavors. The lager was aged for four years in vintage bourbon barrels, creating a smooth whiskey with sweet fruity esters and a very slight bitterness from the Noble hops.