In 2022, we're releasing our Queen's Share Rum in a gift box with a collectible 2022 Edition Glencairn glass. Nope, we aren't increasing the price. Just like last year, this gets into your hands for $70. It's our way of saying "thank you" for supporting us all year long.

If you haven't heard of our Queen's Share Rum before, the gist of it is that we take the most flavor-intense portions of our regular rum, redistill, and barrel-age. Our still, just like all other non-column stills, is somewhat inefficient. By that, we mean the good alcohol, ethanol, gets blended in with some bad alcohols (like methanol) during certain times in a distillation run.

Sometimes, that also coincides with the strongest, best flavor components.

That sounds like a lot of good flavor compounds are about to go to waste. But not all is lost - we can redistill these parts to try one last time to recapture that ethanol. The easiest thing to do would be to just toss this liquid into the next batch. The more disciplined thing to do is redistill it on its own and fill a barrel. So we do that instead.

We don't get much from this process. We have to distill 10-12 runs of our white, pineapple, or spiced rums before we have enough liquid to redistill. And that will only yield enough to fill a single barrel. Most often, we use a used bourbon barrel from another local distillery. Our first batch (which won Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition) spent 18 months in a barrel from Watershed, and the 2022 release was aged for 20 months in a barrel from Noble Cut.

Since the QSR has to spend so much time in a barrel, and because we only began distilling in 2019, we don't have a lot. Our first two releases have been limited to one barrel each. But we're eager to start looking at 2023 - we currently have NINE barrels that would be over our self-imposed 18-month floor. You're not going to see nine barrels'-worth of QSR coming out next year. Not gonna happen. But what you WILL start to see is an increase in the age of the QSR coming out. You're going to start to see different initial barrels (used rye whiskey, more used bourbon, and some unused oak) as well as some barrel finishes (not spilling the beans on this yet... you'll have to stay tuned).

If you thought QSR 2021 and QSR 2022 were exciting, those were just the test shots in the fireworks show. Cheers!