52 THE NAVIGATOR | FEATURE But balance is everything, and when it comes to bottling Wilson and Mckee have developed a bespoke approach to customised chill-filtration to ensure the spirit is not overpowered by the fatty acids, oils, and lipids from these first-fill American white oak barrels. “We customise the chill filtration,” says McKee. “It’s all about trying to define how a whiskey should be filtered to create the best product that we can.” One of the final steps in the long journey from field to bottle is the focus on singlebarrel and small-batch releases, using tanks that can hold no more than 20 full barrels. The reason? It simply means there’s no room for blending away a bad batch; no place for bad whiskey to hide. “And if a barrel doesn’t meet our standards?” chimes in Magliocco, “We don’t just blend it away or sell it to another bottler. It goes to a company that turns it into fuel ethanol!” “It really shows the quality and discipline that we have at Michter’s,” says Wilson. “To ensure that level of quality in a small liquid quantity, on a consistent repeatable basis… it shows precision and accuracy, from distillation through maturation and ageing to bottling.” The final step in the process of creating Michter’s is deciding on the precise moment each barrel is ready. That falls to McKee and Wilson, who don’t simply follow the calendar and bottle when a specific amount of ageing has passed. Dan and Andrea in the warehouse Custom chill filtration Small-batch tanks
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