There’s a delicate art, when it comes to fusing history with marketability in the spirits industry. Having a great name and totemic figure to base a new brand around is a big part of the battle … but so is then assembling a product that reflects the historic story being evoked. Things become that much more complicated, as well, when dealing with one’s own family legacy. Such is the position of North Carolina’s Call Family Distillers as they launch The Reverend Sour Mash Whiskey, which trades on the family’s own history as a primary influencer in the legacy of American whiskey.
The Reverend is a reference to The Rev. Daniel Houston Call, a 19th century “preacher, farmer, grocer and distiller.” In his distilling education, Call worked alongside two names that have now grown into legends of the industry: Jaser “Jack” Newton Daniel and Nathan “Nearest” Green, both of which are names obviously associated now with major whiskey brands. Together, the three were involved in the development of the Tennessee whiskey category in particular, and its Lincoln County Process, which is in basic terms the filtering of finished whiskey through maple charcoal.
As for what is actually inside a bottle of the new The Reverend Sour Mash Whiskey brand, though, it may not exactly be what one would expect. There’s no Tennessee whiskey, for one–according to a company representative this is “a blend of 100% sour mash whiskies from Kentucky, Indiana and North Carolina.” That presumably implies some of the usual sources for sourced Kentucky and Indiana whiskey, along with distillate from Call Family Distillers itself. That distillate is blended and then maple charcoal filtered in North Carolina, allowing the company to label each bottle as having been “produced and bottled” by Call Family Distillers in Wilkesboro, NC. It’s not the most transparent label if we’re being honest, and it would be nice to see it note where its component parts had been distilled. Also of note: The Reverend Sour Mash Whiskey is effectively the national launch/reconceptualization of a previous “Reverend” product produced by the distillery, which can still be seen on the company website. That product is now obsolete, and The Reverend Sour Mash Whiskey we’re tasting today is taking the concept wide, with a national release underway by the end of 2024, at a fairly approachable $36 MSRP.
So with all that said, let’s take a gander at The Reverend and see how this blend of modestly aged (4-6 years) KY, IN and NC whiskeys get along.