Introducing Montgomery Distillery

We end what might be one of the best weeks we’ve had at Seelbach’s this year with another new-to-us brand out of Montana: Montgomery Distillery.  Montana isn’t exactly the first place we go looking for whiskey, but after coming across the brand in a Brewzle video, we knew they were worth digging into.
 
Montgomery Distillery opened in 2012 as Missoula’s first craft distillery, built around a simple idea: grow the grain, mill it, ferment it, distill it, all in-house. The wheat and rye come straight from the 5th Generation Montgomery family farm in central Montana, land that’s been in the family for over 100 years. It sits at the geographic center of the state along one of Montana’s largest spring creeks, which also helps irrigate their crops.
 
Distiller Christopher Conley has been running the stillroom since day one, building out a program that now spans multiple ages of rye, single malt, wheated, and high rye bourbon, along with a range of finishing approaches.
 
The whiskeys speak for themselves. Their Ancient Wisdom is one of the best high-age, lower-proof ryes we’ve come across. The grain is grown on the Montgomery farm before resting at least 10 years in new, heavy char American oak.
 
Their Mama Tried bourbons run a 51/39/10 mashbill, with either rye or wheat as the secondary grain. Bottled at 90 proof, both are easy reaches at a great price, and I'd even say the wheated Mama Tried may be my favorite alternative to Weller presently on the market: silky and sweet like melted Neapolitan ice cream. 
 
Lastly is their B'Amaro Bourbon Amaro, a one-of-a-kind amaro that blends the bitter herbs of ancient Italy with the bold backbone of Western whiskey. Given how often Blake and I are drinking Old Fashioneds and an Underberg when out of town for barrel picks, we might as well just switch to this.