Latest Lost Lantern Collection Consolidates Craft Whiskey Maturity

By Richard Thomas

Fourteen years ago, before The Whiskey Reviewer had even been founded, now defunct blogger Steve Ury declared “Most Craft Whiskeys Suck.” In my opinion, Ury’s style blended a sense of mischief with an often caustic integrity, and in this instance that led him to push back against the fawning and often unjustified coverage the then-novel craft whiskey movement received in the mainstream press. The problem with Ury’s declaration is that it has become a meme, far outliving the blog that gave birth to it. The mainstream drinks press picked up the meme (presumably in the name of chasing clicks), and as recently as a few years ago “Craft Whiskey Sucks” headlines were still appearing. Whiskey forums still regularly see new threads declaring all craft whiskeys suck or all craft whiskeys are fraudulent.

Yet the longevity of the “craft whiskey sucks” meme has now reached the point of identifying its promoter as a toxic nerd, because so much of what is coming out of the craft distilling sector today is as good as comparable whiskeys from the Big Distillers. Production processes have been steadily improved, but as important is that many distillers either started with or made the transition to longer maturation periods in medium- and full-sized barrels. Two and a half years ago, I began calling the arrival of this mature stage “Craft Whiskey 2.0.”

The earliest signals of that maturity were the burgeoning bottled in bond releases from the craft distilleries themselves, but negociant Lost Lantern’s Fall 2024 collection confirms and consolidates the maturity of craft whiskey: it consists of four 10 year old, single barrel, cask strength bottlings from craft distillers from around America.

Lost Lantern was founded by Nora Ganley-Roper, a former Sales Manager at Astor Wine & Spirits, and Adam Polonski, a former senior writer at Whisky Advocate. The company is a bottler of sourced whiskeys in the same tradition as so many negociants in Scotland and Ireland, a business model that, even today, is rare in the United States. In this country, folks in the sourced whiskey business prefer to use the sourced whiskey to craft their own brands and not identify with the source. The model pursued by Roper and Polonski does both that and produces regular single barrel releases that are tied by name to the source distillery. In the case of the Fall 2024 collection, some of those four whiskeys are older than anything the distillery of origin has ever released under their own banner.

These days, 10 year old single barrels sit in a gray zone between ordinary premium and (truly) super premium expressions. Examples include the Michter’s 10 year old bourbon and rye, Rebel Yell’s 10 year old bourbon, Eagle Rare and others that routinely command a low, three-digit price. All bottlings in the collection are priced at $150, so very much on par with their peers.

By putting four such expressions in a collection, Lost Lantern is making the statement better than I ever have: craft whiskey is mature, y’all.

New York Distilling 10 Year Old Rye
Rating: B+
125 bottles, 133.8 proof

This rye was made in that hotbed of urban distilling, Brooklyn. The mash is 72% rye, 16% corn, and 12% malted barley, which was then entered into char #3, 53-gallon American Standard Barrel (ASB) at 115 proof. I found the coloring a deep, dark amber, and that after a double splash of water. The nose gave me a spice blend that leaned hard on nutmeg, ginger and cloves, with a current of mustiness. From there, the flavor jinked towards sweetness, with a hint of vanilla and a dash of cookie spices. The finish also ran like a sweeter rye, with a light note of wood, but that faded fast and left a marginal ashy note to linger on.

Spirit Works 10 Year Old Rye
Rating: B+
120 bottles, 139.2 proof

The second rye in the collection comes from Sonoma County, California, some 3,000 miles from Brooklyn. Made by an all-woman team from a 70% rye, 10% malted rye, and 20% malted barley mash, it was entered into a char #4  ASB at 114 proof. The pour comes out as a browned middle amber, with a nose that leads with that pumpernickel and treacle scent that is so familiar to whiskeys with malted rye in them. It leads so much so that one would be forgiven for thinking that the malted rye was more than a mere 10% of the mash. Behind that, the nose carried some plums and vanilla. The palate is quite smooth, smacking of dark and moody fruits, backed by ginger and vanilla.

Tom’s Foolery 10 Year Old Bourbon
Rating: A-
82 bottles, 119.4 proof

Ohio’s Tom’s Foolery began as a hobby scale micro-distillery in 2008 and grew to its current renown among craft whiskey diehards with time. They are very reliant on traditional methods and a lot of hand labor, as well as being a farm distillery that grows most or all of the corn used in any given batch of bourbon, such as this one. They are one of the few small distillers in America to have already released whiskeys of their own at or beyond the 10 year age mark. The mash is 63% corn, 10% winter rye, and 27% malted barley, with the new make entered into a char #4 ASB at a relatively low 109.5 proof. The color in the glass is a dark, browned amber, while the nose combined a light, sweet foundation with a thick coating of nuttiness. The flavor leads with an oatcracker coated with blended nut butter, but that is rapidly swamped by a thick wave of brown sugar and vanilla. The finish wrapped up with a lingering vanilla bean note.

Westland Distillery 9.99 Year Old Single Malt
Rating: A-
185 bottles, 109.8 proof

Two things to note. One is that the folks at Westland do not like having their distillery classed as “craft.” Also, the reason Lost Lantern bottled this whiskey a day short of being 10 years old is because Westland hasn’t released a 10 year old of their own yet, and apparently there was a desire to not upstage them. This one was made with malted barley peated using imported Scots peat. Whether that was from Islay, another island or the mainland is not known (and terroir matters for peat), but the barley was peated to approximately 55 ppm. That was entered at 110 proof into a new ISC Cooper’s Select barrel, with a light toasting and heavy charring. The coloring came out as a flat, dull mid-amber. The nose lead with its wood, followed by malty honey and cookies spices, and finally a whiff of smoke. The flavor put the malty honey and cookies spices up front, now followed by a nutty note and finally a light dusting of ash. The finish turned out to be the most complex part of the experience, opening as ash and spice, turning to nuts and spice, and then finally fading off as just spice.