In the world of American whiskey, there are plenty of small ventures started by people with tremendous passion for the spirit, but passion and experience don’t always arrive together. Understanding how individual barrels develop, knowing when seemingly unrelated whiskeys can work together in a blend and recognizing when a particularly good barrel is better left alone are skills usually earned through years of tasting, experimenting and, occasionally, making mistakes. For a new whiskey brand fortunate enough to begin with that experience already in place, it can make all the difference.
Such is the story of Silverthorn Reserve, a relatively new and intensely focused independent whiskey venture from Drew Thorn, who comes to the project following roughly a decade with Sagamore Spirit, the highly successful Maryland rye whiskey producer. Thorn served as COO and CFO before eventually becoming CEO, giving him a front-row seat not only to the growth of an important American rye brand but also to the countless decisions that go into sourcing, producing, blending, packaging and ultimately selling whiskey.
Silverthorn represents something considerably different. Instead of trying to build another large whiskey company, Thorn has intentionally gone small, creating the kind of independent operation where a handful of barrels can receive his full attention and where the quality and character of the whiskey determine what gets bottled. In many ways, it is the project he had been thinking about for years, originally envisioning Silverthorn as something he might pursue in retirement before deciding the time was right to make it a reality.
Even the name carries a personal connection. When Thorn’s son was just a few years old, he began calling himself “Silverthorn,” combining portions of the family names Silverman and Thorn. The nickname eventually became the identity of the whiskey company, and putting a family name on the bottle reinforces the personal accountability Thorn brings to the project. Silverthorn is very much his operation from beginning to end, with Thorn helping design the bottles and brand identity, determining the initial product lineup, finding and evaluating barrels, creating the blends and remaining closely involved through bottling.
Thorn has also maintained a strong relationship with Sagamore Spirit, allowing Silverthorn to warehouse whiskey in the distillery’s aging facilities and conduct portions of its initial production work there. That relationship gives him the ability to build something new without completely leaving behind the people and facilities that were such an important part of his whiskey career.
When it comes to finding whiskey, Thorn’s sourcing philosophy is refreshingly straightforward: Geography matters considerably less than what is actually inside the barrel. Silverthorn currently works with whiskeys originating in Georgia, Indiana and Kentucky, but Thorn is willing to look virtually anywhere if the quality of the liquid warrants his attention. His preferred territory tends to be mature whiskey in the 10- to 15-year range, although age is never treated as an automatic indication of quality.
Transparency is equally important to the Silverthorn approach. Some of the Georgia whiskey, for example, was acquired through Bardstown Bourbon Co., which had obtained the barrels from the now-defunct Ivy Mountain Distillery. The Indiana stocks include high-malt bourbon sourced through Old Elk, the whiskey company closely associated with former MGP master distiller Greg Metze. Rather than allowing the origins of sourced whiskey to remain part of the mystery, Thorn believes knowing what went into a blend is part of understanding what eventually comes out of the bottle.
Once those barrels arrive in Maryland, Silverthorn begins to separate itself from many independent bottlers. Thorn personally samples every barrel and conducts a detailed sensory evaluation, recording information about its flavor characteristics, proof, age and overall quality in a comprehensive database. Over time, that collection of information becomes a working map of Silverthorn’s whiskey inventory, allowing him to identify barrels that might complement one another in a blend while also recognizing those exceptional barrels that deserve additional aging or a future single-barrel release.
The blending itself begins on a remarkably small scale. Thorn creates numerous experimental blends of approximately 100 milliliters, adjusting combinations and proportions as he searches for a profile where the individual components contribute something meaningful to the finished whiskey. Once he believes he has found the right formula, he scales the experiment to approximately 750 milliliters, essentially a full bottle, to make sure the characteristics he found in the smaller blend remain intact at the larger volume.
Even after the formula has been finalized, Thorn isn’t in a hurry to get the whiskey into bottles. The selected barrels are dumped and combined before the finished blend is returned to the same barrels from which it came, where it rests for at least a month and sometimes longer. That additional time allows the individual components to marry and develop as a single whiskey rather than simply being combined immediately before bottling.
When Thorn determines the whiskey is ready, the barrels are moved to Old Line Spirits in Baltimore for the final stages of production. There, the whiskey is dumped and filtered using cellulose sock filters rather than chill filtration, removing barrel char and sediment while preserving the flavor and mouthfeel Thorn worked to maintain throughout the blending process. The whiskey then spends another four to five days resting in the packaging tank, allowing the already blended barrels another opportunity to fully integrate before bottling.
As interesting as Silverthorn’s blending process is, one of Thorn’s most creative ideas can be found in the brand’s Port Finish Rye, an expression that approaches secondary maturation differently from the traditional practice of simply putting whiskey into a recently emptied wine barrel.
Conventional finishing barrels can introduce a surprising number of variables. The quality of the wine originally stored in the barrel, how recently it was emptied, how the barrel was handled afterward, the condition of the wood and even the authenticity of its history can all influence the finished whiskey. Thorn wanted greater control over those variables, which led him to develop and hand-build his own barrel-conditioning system.
The system uses a stainless steel rod fitted with an atomizing tip that is inserted through the barrel’s bung hole. Powered by carbon dioxide, it introduces port as a fine mist that coats the inside of the barrel and helps drive the fortified wine into the wood grain. The barrel is then allowed to cure before whiskey is introduced, giving Thorn considerably more control over the port selection, barrel quality, freshness of the wine and exact quantity used.
It is an inventive solution to a familiar whiskey-making challenge, but more importantly, it reflects the broader philosophy behind Silverthorn. Thorn isn’t interested in finishing whiskey simply so the words “port finished” can appear on the label. The secondary maturation has to contribute something worthwhile while remaining balanced with the whiskey underneath it.
That same philosophy carries into Silverthorn’s portfolio, which is divided among expressions highlighting blending, finishing and exceptional individual barrels.
Product Line Up
Expressions in the Silverthorn line up are broken up as follows:
Blender’s Art Series:
- 10-Year Bourbon Blend: the most complex blend in the current portfolio, containing whiskeys from Georgia, Kentucky, and Indiana (14Y 4-grain bourbon from GA, with 10Y high-malt bourbon from IN and 10Y low-rye bourbon from KY).
- 10-Year Rye Blend: A blend of eight barrels that brings together 13Y high-rye, with 10Y high-rye, 10Y low-rye, and 1 barrel of 10Y high-rye double oak. All from Indiana.
- 10-Year Bourbon & Rye: A marriage of 13-year bourbon and two 10-year ryes.
Finisher’s Art Series:
- Port Finish Rye: the current release, using Drew’s proprietary barrel conditioning process with 10-year-old tawny port as the final barrel influencing component. A straight rye blend.
Single Barrel Series:
- Single Barrel Rye: 13-Year rye at cask strength.
- Single Barrel Bourbon: 13-Year, 4-grain bourbon at cask strength.
The Blender’s Art Series is perhaps the clearest demonstration of what Thorn is trying to accomplish. Its 10-Year Bourbon Blend brings together a 14-year-old four-grain bourbon from Georgia with 10-year-old high-malt bourbon from Indiana and 10-year-old low-rye bourbon from Kentucky. Those are three distinctly different whiskeys, from three different states, selected not because of where they came from but because of what Thorn believes they can become together.
The 10-Year Rye Blend takes a similar approach with eight barrels of Indiana rye, combining 13-year-old high-rye whiskey with 10-year-old high-rye and low-rye stocks, along with a 10-year-old high-rye double-oaked barrel. Another expression, the 10-Year Bourbon & Rye, marries 13-year-old bourbon with two 10-year-old ryes, allowing the sweetness and mature oak of the bourbon to work alongside the spice and structure of the rye.
Silverthorn’s Finisher’s Art Series provides a place for Thorn to explore secondary maturation, with the Port Finish Rye serving as its current centerpiece. The straight rye blend uses Thorn’s barrel-conditioning technique and 10-year-old tawny port to add another layer of flavor without allowing the finishing component to overwhelm the underlying whiskey.
The Single Barrel Series is reserved for something entirely different. During the evaluation process, Thorn occasionally encounters a barrel that simply doesn’t need his blending skills. Instead of forcing that whiskey into another project, the barrel can be set aside and eventually bottled on its own, including a 13-year-old rye offered at cask strength.
That may ultimately be what makes Silverthorn Reserve such an interesting addition to the increasingly crowded world of independent American whiskey. There is no shortage of companies buying mature barrels and putting their own labels on them, nor is there anything inherently wrong with that model when the whiskey is good and the sourcing is transparent. Silverthorn, however, is trying to demonstrate that sourcing the barrel is only the beginning of the process.
Knowing what to do with it afterward is where experience comes into play.
For Thorn, that might mean combining a Georgia bourbon with whiskeys from Kentucky and Indiana, marrying bourbon and rye, creating an entirely different method of conditioning a finishing barrel or simply tasting a 13-year-old rye and deciding the smartest thing he can do is leave it alone.
After spending years helping build Sagamore Spirit, Thorn isn’t starting Silverthorn Reserve by learning the whiskey business from scratch. He is taking everything learned during that chapter of his career and applying it to a venture where he can concentrate on the details that made him interested in whiskey in the first place.
There is something refreshing about that approach at a time when so much of the American whiskey business is focused on growth, distribution and how quickly a brand can scale. Silverthorn Reserve is going in the other direction, placing its attention on a relatively small number of mature barrels and asking a much simpler question: What is the best whiskey Drew Thorn can make from what is sitting in front of him?
Based on the thought and precision going into each bottle, Silverthorn Reserve is an independent whiskey brand worth keeping an eye on.
