Brother Justus Whiskey Lot 23F18B

Brother Justus Whiskey Lot 23F18B

Brother Justus is a Minneapolis craft distillery producing American Whiskey from 100% Minnesota-sourced malted barley. In 2025, Fred Minnick ranked Brother Justus the #4 American Whiskey in his annual Top 100, above every release from Heaven Hill, Bardstown, Maker's Mark, and Four Roses, calling it a "game changer" and his personal favorite of the year. In early 2026, Brother Justus won Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition for its flagship American Whiskey with a score of 97 in the Craft Whiskey Distiller category after previously securing a Double Gold designation with a score of 98 points for its inaugural Founder’s Reserve LTO in 2024. The quality of our barrels is not age-driven. It comes from ingredient specificity, process precision, and a distillation approach that produces three structurally distinct distillates, each matured separately and available as single barrels. Production Notes: ● Mashbill: 100% pale ale malted barley, Great Plains grown, malted in Minnesota at the largest malting facility in the Western hemisphere, located 20 miles from the distillery. Crushed on-site for maximum freshness and optimal extract. ● Water: Drawn from the Mississippi Headwaters, the stretch of river between its origin in the limestone bedrock of northern Minnesota and St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, where the bedrock ends. Mineral-rich, cold, and geologically distinct from anything downstream. ● Fermentation: Long, high-ABV, grain-off fermentation designed to stress the yeast and drive ester production. The result is a proprietary profile of fruity, herbal, and floral esters; nutty and spicy eugenols; rich fatty acids; and deep cake and cookie maltiness, all before a drop of spirit touches wood. ● Distillation: Batch-distilled in 1,000-gallon pot-column hybrid stills. Distillers make three distinct hand cuts, each a separate recipe, each captured at high proof to preserve the most refined and flavor-defined spectrum from the mash. ● Maturation: Aged in new, char 3 or 4, 30-gallon casks coopered in Minnesota from native, slow-growth Minnesota white oak. The slow growth produces tighter grain and denser wood, shaping the interaction between spirit and barrel throughout aging. This offering is a single-distillation hearts cut with tight late heads and early tails. Vanilla cake, butterscotch cookie, baked stone fruit, baking spice, black pepper, buttercream. This barrel will improve with additional age and forms the backbone of the Minnick #4-ranked blend and the San Francisco 97-point and 98-points products.