Is the Future of Bourbon Heritage Grains?
New Southern Revival Straight Bourbon from High Wire Distillery in Charleston, South Carolina, is made from a mash consisting only of Jimmy Red Corn. It’s an old hooch corn, with beautiful, ragged runs of kernels that vary from fire orange to a deep, purplish red. It’s named after James Island, South Carolina, where it was grown for decades and almost drifted off into extinction.
“Cool name, cool story, but it tastes different, and that’s what’s important,” says Scott Blackwell, who started High Wire distilling with his wife Ann Marshall in 2013. Their work was recognized this year with a nomination for the James Beard Award for outstanding wine, spirits or beer producer.
Blackwell came from a baking background—“food and flavor” he says. He paid his way through college baking pies. He then started the Immaculate Baking Company in his garage in 1995, and in 2012 sold it to General Mills. “I’ve been in the food business my whole life, all the way back to fifteen, washing dishes, working at fish camps.”