{"id":57941,"date":"2025-01-24T10:00:12","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"\/blog\/post\/heavens-door-whiskey\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T12:54:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T12:54:02","slug":"heavens-door-whiskey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.masterofmalt.com\/blog\/post\/heavens-door-whiskey\/","title":{"rendered":"Knockin\u2019 Back Heaven\u2019s Door: Bob Dylan, Whiskey, and A Complete Unknown"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s getting dark too dark to see. <\/em><\/p>\n

Feels like I’m knockin’ on Heaven’s door\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

The <\/span>Bob Dylan<\/b> biopic <\/span>A Complete Unknown <\/span><\/i>starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet as the legendary American singer-songwriter arrived in the UK last week. Not that I probably need to tell any of you given it’s everywhere. Critical <\/span>and<\/span><\/i> commercial success? Pick a lane, Bob.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first film made about Dylan and it likely won\u2019t be the last, given he\u2019s one of the most renowned and influential artists of all time. In a career that spans over six decades, he\u2019s sold over 125 million records, is one of only two songwriters* to have been awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature, and his memoir, <\/span>Chronicles Vol. 1<\/span><\/i>, spent 19 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List in 2004.<\/span><\/p>\n

I got a chance to see the film at a preview last week and since then I\u2019ve had Dylan on the brain. A whisky blog wouldn’t typically give me much excuse to write about him. Good thing then Dylan has a whiskey<\/a> brand: <\/span>Heaven\u2019s Door<\/b><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you weren\u2019t aware he had one of those, then strap in, this article is going to be a treat of discovery for you. We’re going to get to know the brand and the man behind it. One who is also an artist of drawings, paintings, and sculptures as well as a keen boxer and the co-owner of a fine distillery in Kentucky. <\/span>The focus will be primarily on the latter here because this is Master of Malt after all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the story of Heaven\u2019s Door Whiskey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"With

Bob Dylan. You’ve heard of him, right?<\/p><\/div>\n

The story of Heaven\u2019s Door Whiskey\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

Heaven’s Door dates back to 2015, when Marc Bushala, the C.E.O. of Spirits Investment Partnership, was looking for a new whiskey project after making big bucks selling Angel\u2019s Envy Bourbon<\/a> to Bacardi. \u201cI had read that Bob Dylan filed a trademark application for a whiskey called Bootleg. I thought it was really interesting that he would want to own anything, particularly launch a whiskey brand. I was fascinated just thinking about what that would be,\u201d Bushala explains.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After considering what a Dylan whiskey brand would be it was decided that having a singular whiskey expression for somebody so prolific and diverse in their music didn’t make sense. \u201cWe thought maybe an evolving repertoire collection \u2013 or catalogue if you will \u2013 of whiskeys was more on brand. Conversations with Bob evolved into having whiskeys that told stories in their own way\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The name was taken from one of his most famous hits, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door<\/em>. But it wasn’t music, but Dylan\u2019s visual art<\/a> that got the creative juices flowing. \u201cAs a Bob Dylan fan, I was amazed to learn that he was a painter and a sculptor. We thought this positioning of the perfect blending of art and craft could be a really fun place to play\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

His art became the inspiration for the bottle designs, with the paintings being used on special releases and the metal work for the core range. You\u2019ll see the whiskeys pictured in this article adorned with the iron gate artwork designed in his studio, Black Buffalo Ironworks. Spot the crow on the Tennessee bourbon, the heel spur on the rye and a shovel on the double-barrel whiskey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heaven\u2019s

Pleasureville by name… Take in the beautiful Heaven\u2019s Door Whiskey Distillery.<\/p><\/div>\n

Creating the whiskey distillery<\/b><\/h3>\n

The biggest development for the brand in recent years has been the establishment of the Heaven\u2019s Door Whiskey Distillery. Originally the whiskey was sourced (most still is but that will gradually be phased out and replaced with HD original) with a couple of different distilleries producing mashbills to specification.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The distillery is in a town called Pleasureville in Kentucky. The 160-acre picturesque property was once owned by Squire Boone, the brother of legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone and sits astride Six Mile Creek on the Bourbon Trail, between Lexington and Louisville. It boasts an eighteenth-century grist mill, two eighteenth-century cabins and a Moravian barn, all of which have been restored. \u201cThis is part American history tour, part craft distillery,\u201d Bushala says.<\/span><\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a firm eye on the future too. This is a sustainable outfit, with two underground aquifers providing pristine limestone water and geothermal heating and cooling for its buildings. The distillery grows heirloom grains and recycles protein-rich mash from fermentation for a herd of buffalo it built a farm for. Heaven\u2019s Door has been recognised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as one of eight distilleries to earn the ENERGY STAR certification for superior energy performance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When the brand first launched there was talk the distillery would be built in a Nashville church where Dylan recorded four albums. While this wasn\u2019t pursued, the dedicated brand experience centre is in a church, built in 1860, in downtown Louisville. This is a Dylan centre of excellence, complete with his paintings and sculptures on display. The brand will also curate other exhibits by other artists and intends to create the largest selection of American whiskey anywhere, rather than just feature its own.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really going to be the High Church of Bourbon,\u201d Bushala explains. \u201cSo we’re out procuring every unique and rare bottle we can. We’ll have a small performance space in the church, a full restaurant and then the art gallery\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Heaven's

The custom 18-inch thick, 45-foot tall Vendome column still<\/p><\/div>\n

How Heaven\u2019s Door Distillery makes whiskey\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n

The Heaven\u2019s Door Distillery has been quietly under development since 2017 and has been producing small batches of bourbon since 2018. Ken Pierce was brought on as master distiller, a whiskey maker with decades of experience noted for creating 1792 Small Batch Whiskey<\/a> and Barton’s limited-release expressions. <\/span><\/p>\n

The distillery features two separate stillhouses, each in its own towering western horse barn, a visitor\u2019s centre with tasting rooms and lounges overlooking the valley and Six Mile Creek. <\/span>Heaven\u2019s Door can make about 6-8,000 barrels a year of whiskey but production will eventually be scaled to 50,000 barrels with the addition of a second production facility. <\/span>The distillery, as discussed earlier, grows its own grains, and ferments them for two to two-and-a-half days. But the fermenters are running 24 hours and the whiskey makers are emptying four of them a day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The whiskey is distilled in a custom 18-inch thick, 45-foot tall Vendome column still with doubler. The first run through the column still sees the fermented liquid (mash or distiller\u2019s beer depending on which side of the pond you\u2019re on) enter at the top of the column still, right below the first rectifying part of the still. It passes through about 18 plates on the way down while steam comes up from the bottom. The steam passes up through the mash and takes the alcohol vapour right to the top of that still, the rectifying part, where it will recondense and fall back down. This process called reflux is purifying the spirit, bringing it to around 62.5% ABV (125 proof).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The liquid, called the low wine or first run, is then sent to the doubler, a much shorter second still that looks like a pot still, to redistill it. The new make spirit, or what Americans call \u2018white dog\u2019 or \u2018white lighting\u2019, comes off at 64% ABV (128 proof). It\u2019s taken diluted to 60% ABV (120 proof) to put into barrels. The new American oak barrels are typically charred to level 3 or level 4 and are left to mature between five years to 10, 12, 15, 20. They won\u2019t be able to go much above 20 years as the hot Kentucky climate will see to it that there\u2019s not much left in the barrel.<\/span><\/p>\n