Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye in produced in Pennsylvania, USA by Mountain Laurel Spirits.
Along with other craft distillers, The Mountain Laurel distillery is playing its role in restoring Pennsylvania historical place as America’s rye whiskey mecca.
But there is also family history in Dad’s Hat Rye, a whiskey meant to evoke the taste of Herman Mihalich’s grandfather favourite drink — rye whiskey. Rye was a staple in the family’s tavern in Monessen, Pennsylvania, where Mihalich lived as a child upstairs. The Mountain Laurel Spirits distillery he’s created with old college mate and partner, John Cooper, is state of the art, despite the historic setting in a rehabbed wooden mill in downtown part of the city of Bristol.
The first of Dad’s Hat product to make it down under is the 45% Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey. Aged relatively swiftly for seven to nine months in small 80 litre barrels, the finished spirit is artfully blended to show rounded hints of cinnamon, dried fruits, nuts and candied apple, a rye that shouldn’t be fussed with in overly complicated cocktail. Sipping on ice is just fine.