On December 21, 2023, Brother Justus Whiskey Company hit an incredible milestone: we filled our 3,000th barrel! Over 64,000 gallons of whiskey have been filled into barrels over the lifetime of the company, with 30,000 gallons of whiskey filled in 2023 alone. After a year of monumental growth, marked by national and international awards, groundbreaking innovation, and the sheer amount of whiskey crafted by our production team, we asked our Founder & CEO, Phil Steger, and Director Production, James Jefferson, to reflect on the journey so far.

Reaching our 3,000th barrel is a huge milestone! What are you reflecting on from over the last ten years?

Phil Steger: We set out with a grand ambition to pioneer a new category of whiskey by beginning with the fundamentals and building up from the basics to extract bold, new flavors of the continent's great bioregions from ancient ingredients and traditional techniques approached in a new way. Our first six years focused on the learning and mastering the fundamentals of single malt ingredients, technique, and taste, while pushing those to the limit to create groundbreaking innovation. The last four have focused on achieving scale and rock-solid consistency in our three, core American Single Malt Whiskeys. Along with the national and international awards we won in 20223, the 3000th barrel encapsulates those achievements. [We took the] long way around and the hard way forward. But, that's the only way you can go where no one else has gone before and to take other people with you. I'm incredibly proud of and grateful to all the people who have believed in this journey and contributed so much of themselves to making it happen. The best is yet to come!

James Jefferson: Barrel numbers 16 to 3,030 have been my responsibility from 2017-2023. With the evolution of the company from a 20-gallon still, to a 100-gallon, to 1,000, and now 2, 1,000-gallon stills, we have found new and innovative ways to use the grain; made cuts of fore shots, heads, hearts, and tails; incorporated peat in an entirely new way; took the barrels out of the underground aging “dunnage” and into a temperature controlled and air-filtered storage warehouse; gained more control of the fermentation, mashing, and distillation … [That work] has resulted in more complex spirits with superior drinkability and an attention to detail that is unmatched. Any distillery out there in the world could do exactly what we do and how we do it - and I guarantee the spirit would not be as good because they do not have the craft and ingenuity of our dedicated and passionate distilling team.

What happens now to the whiskey that was filled into the 3,000th barrel?

JJ: Now that the whiskey is in the barrel, it will age and mature into a refined and polished beverage. The caramel and vanilla flavors balance the flavors of the spirit, the tannins and polyphenols add structure and mouthfeel to the beverage, and the flavors themselves are chemically altered as chemical bonds are broken and new ones are formed over time. This is the true magic of whiskey making as no one, no chemist, no physicist, fully understands all of the chemical reactions that occur over the multiple years of aging.

PS: I'm deeply curious about how the mix of fruit, spice, and umami flavors interact with the oak sugars, vanillins, and tannins. My hope and hunch is that the dessert-like flavors and the savory flavors will intensify and complexify in both dimensions, without one overshadowing the other. The fresh fruit flavors will deepen and develop into richer layers of dried and baked fruit, the spices will develop from black pepper into allspice and cloves, and the salami-like umami will provide this very rich structure and body that will hold all those dense and concentrated flavors in balance while being smooth and creamy across the palate. But who knows! That's the tantalizing wonder of making whiskey!

JJ: The 3000th barrel will be given a place of importance, set aside from the rest, by the chapter room where its aging will take place alongside the continuing evolution of our company and the ideas and experiences happening at Brother Justus will be absorbed into this unique and exciting barreling.

What are you looking forward to as Brother Justus Whiskey Co. takes its next steps?

PS: I'm amazed at how we set our vision and followed it, achieving every impossible-seeming goal we've set for ourselves so far … Our next step is to get our whiskeys out to where whiskey lovers can discover them and lose themselves in their rich landscapes of flavor. I couldn't be more excited!