Whistling Andy to release their first whiskey

Hints of bananas and tropical fruit waft up into the nose.

On ice, the heat from its alcohol is subdued and the sweet caramel flavor is smooth on the tongue and in the back of the throat.

It’s called Harvest Select and even when this Whistling Andy whiskey is served neat, it’s smooth.

The whiskey has aged for a little over a year and it’s made from their moonshine, which is essentially a white, unaged, whiskey.

“We wanted to start doing whiskey right from the beginning,” owner and distiller Brian Anderson said.

Which is why the distillery started making their moonshine when they opened in January 2011. But Whistling Andy couldn’t keep enough moonshine on hand for their customers to buy, let alone enough to set aside for aging in the 53-gallon white oak barrels they special ordered from Lynchburg, Tenn. to be medium-charred on the inside.

Three months after opening, they finally put some moonshine into barrels and started aging it.

Anderson determined it was ready to bottle after a blind tasting the distillery held in February 2012.

Mason jars with five other whiskeys were numbered for 20 people to taste. Anderson said 17 people chose Harvest Select as their number one. It was the second choice of the remaining three people.

It has a unique flavor that stems from the soil of the Lake Seed farm in Ronan. That’s the farm Whistling Andy purchases all of their grain from.

“The reason we do that is because then I know exactly what chunk of land that came from,” Anderson said.

The issue is, the grain isn’t malted when it gets to the distillery. Normally a brewery or distillery that wants to purchase malted grain that was grown in-state can get it from Great Falls. The problem for Anderson is he would have no idea where the grain came from, how it was grown or who grew it.

So, Whistling Andy uses an enzyme that enables the grain to essentially mimic the malting process while it’s being distilled.

The malting process is what allows starches in the grain to become the sugar that is turned into alcohol.

Harvest Select was bottled Sat., March 10. Whistling Andy releases the batch for sale on Saint Patrick’s Day.

The distillery will reserve about 100 of 350 bottles for sale in their tasting room.

Sales start at 10 a.m. Saturday morning. The first 100 people through the door will receive whiskey chocolate cupcakes with Irish cream frosting.

A limited number of bottles will be for sale at some Flathead Valley state-run liquore stores.