Tasting notes

nose

campfire smoke and peated malt with white pepper, grilled peach, faint pear, toasted meringue and an earthy, smoky-meat edge

palate

oily and rounded; ripe nectarine and white peach meet charred oak, peppercorn, baking spice, light vanilla and pipe tobacco

finish

chewy and lingering; campfire smoke and toffee hold with caramelized peach and crisp pear, tapering to faint oak and white pepper

Mash bill

100% peat-malted barley from Scotland. The barley is malted and peated there and shipped to Clear Creek in Hood River, so the smoke arrives with the grain. It is the same peated malt Clear Creek uses for its younger McCarthy's single malt.

Why it's craft

Steve McCarthy founded Clear Creek in Portland in 1985 to make fruit brandy, then set out to make a peated malt whiskey in Oregon, and the brand calls the result the first American single malt. This bottling doubles the age of the standard three-year, ages entirely in Oregon oak and skips chill filtration. Clear Creek now distills in Hood River and has been owned by Hood River Distillers since 2014.