The Old Kernel Straight Bourbon Whiskey

We got the opportunity to visit Ironclad Distillery during our annual Whiskey Discovery Roadtrip last year after a member highly recommended it (thanks, Chris from VA!), and were so thrilled to be able to get them into a box! They were maybe the most hospitable and enthusiastic distillery visit we’ve ever had, which makes sense once you get to know their family story. The King family started Ironclad in 2014 with the simple yet ambitious goal of creating the best bourbon from grain to glass, “like Grandma would have liked.” As Owen King, their distiller, puts it, “I always like to say that in our family everyone has a bourbon gene in them that gets turned on at some point.” Beginning with hillbilly stills and “urban moonshining” principles drawn from our good friend Colin Spoelman from Kings County Distillery, they were always whiskey focused, never putting out a clear product and committed to always putting what they made into their bottles. It’s easy to root for them, as they are putting out incredible liquid, in awesome-looking bottles, in a beautiful location. Their distillery and tasting room sits in a super cool old warehouse right on the harbor where aircraft carriers are built and refurbished for the Navy, and their name also taps into that military history, as the famous “Battle of the Ironclads”, the Civil War encounter that changed naval warfare forever, took place literally right off shore from their location, where the James River meets the Chesapeake Bay.

Back to that incredible whiskey, though. We loved everything we got to taste from Ironclad, but this Old Kernel Straight Bourbon really spoke to us! (Also, we love a good name pun.) Although every product they make truly represents Virginia terroir, as they not only decided to source all their grains in state, but also committed to exclusively use Virginia oak for their barrels, really solidifying their connection to the area, this Old Kernel takes it even further. They found an heirloom Indian corn from the Eastern Shore of VA called Pungo Creek, which provided unique and complex sweet notes even right off the still. They actually figured out the mash bill for this release by recreating the Maker’s Mark legend of making corn bread with the different combinations of grains and seeing which they liked best, which is how they landed on having the rye to balance out the sweetness of the heirloom corn. And it really delivers on flavor, with Christian raving about it as “high corn bourbon happy land”, but with the layers of black tea, honey, and fun fruit notes you don’t typically get in many bourbons. We knew our curious community would love this one, and look for more great stuff to come! Owen is planning many more heirloom grain releases, saying, “I'm really looking forward to continuing keeping these heirloom corns alive and growing strong, just because they are unique, they're different, and they are worth distilling.” They’re really nerds after our own hearts, “growing whiskey”, as Seabass puts it. Cheers to Ironclad, and, as they say, “Here’s to the brown-blooded!”