Wine & Spirits

Smoke, Char and Guitars

Metallica’s Blackened American Whiskey reverberates with flavor and depth. BY KELLY MAGYARICS

It’s a warm, late-summer evening in Buffalo, and I’m standing in the Snakepit in Highmark Stadium, the area by the stage reserved for friends and family. Surrounding me are mostly fellow Gen Xers who have come to watch one of the greatest rock acts tear through its catalog while James Hetfield and company race up and down catwalks, their boundless energy belying their age.

For a band that’s pretty much conquered the world, you might wonder what’s left to check off at this point? (In 2013, after a show in Antarctica, Metallica even became the first musical group to play all seven continents.) Well, rock and roll and whiskey have long been inextricably linked. Metallica’s own foray into brown booze is a liquid collaboration fused to its sound, borrowing its name from a post-apocalyptic song on its album And Justice for All.

In 2018 the band approached legendary Maker’s Mark distiller and spirits consultant Dave Pickerell to join forces on a whiskey with its own stamp. Since his time as a student and professor at West Point — which houses the world’s largest church organ — Pickerell became fascinated with soundwaves, specifically the low reverberating notes that organ emits. “What if we ran a low-frequency sound through the whiskey?” he wondered.

As luck would have it, Metallica had already created a proprietary subwoofer with Meyer Sound to amplify its signature low-frequency notes. The team took that technology to the cellar, where a matured whiskey blend was transferred to black brandy barrels and left to rest with a soundtrack curated by the band. (Each batch gets its own playlist, which fans can download on Spotify.) This sonic enhancement not only coaxes the liquid in and out of the barrel’s staves, increasing wood contact and adding complex notes of vanilla and spice; it’s also believed to actually intensify interaction at the molecular level.

Unfortunately, Pickerell passed away soon after the launch. The following year Rob Dietrich, former distiller for Stranahan’s American single malt whiskey, took the helm. At a reception before the concert, I caught up with Dietrich, and we tasted several expressions: the flagship blend of North American bourbons and ryes, and Rye the Lightning, crafted from Kentucky straight rye whiskeys aged five to eight years and double-cask finished in Madeira and rum casks. Dietrich also shared tales of his former life as a roadie. Turns out distilling whiskey for a rock band is a job he was born to do.

The latest releases are part of the label’s limited-edition Masters of Whiskey Series, in which Dietrich pairs up with other renowned distillers for reimagined craft whiskeys. The first, a rye blend married for up to 14 weeks in Madeira casks, was a collaboration with Drew Kulsveen of Kentucky’s Willett Distillery. (Even the playlist for the sonic bathing was a dual effort.) The latest, a cask-strength, 6-year-old Kentucky straight Bourbon finished in white Port wine barrels, was created with Wes Henderson, cofounder of Angel’s Envy.

Currently, Blackened American Whiskey is bottled in Columbus, Ohio, at a facility that doesn’t welcome visitors (sad, but true). However, one day the band hopes to open a distillery and tasting room. In the meantime, fans can pour a dram, cue up one of those playlists and rock on.

Remastered:

Blackened whiskey (above), and Rob Dietrich (left)

PHOTOS: © BLACKENED AMERICAN WHISKEY, © DANNY CLINCH

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