Review #46: ASW Duality Double Malt

This is part 3 of our 5-post series on ASW Distillery located in Atlanta, Georgia. We originally visited Atlanta to hang out with a few friends from college. During the trip we stopped by ASW Whisky Exchange, the huge tasting room and mini-Rickhouse offshoot of the Atlanta-based distillery. Links for our first reviews are here: Fiddler Union – their high-wheat bourbon (6.5) and their Resurgens Rye – a 100% malted rye mashbill (7.5).

As a recap of the distillery, it is quite new (they officially began their Atlanta distilling operations in 2016). However, they have already released an impressively large portfolio of whiskies, with 6 available in the tasting room. The taste profiles range from wheated sweet bourbons to super-peaty. All their in-house whiskey is super young, although some of their whiskies use “foraged” whisky sourced from across the country.

The Duality is their “own category” of whiskey: comprising malted barley and malted rye. It received a Double Gold at the San Francisco Spirits Competition in 2018, which surprised even the proprietors because it was at the time only 12 months old. The whiskey was intended to be the Resurgens rye – but because they ran out of malted rye, they added malted barley and ended up with the Duality. On their menu, they recommend the whiskey to people that enjoy “smokey scotch + rye”.

Quick overview of our scoring system – note that our “average” score is 5.

Additional Information

• ABV: 43%
• No Age Statement (but likely very young; their “Duality” whiskey was only a year old when it won Double Gold at the SF Spirits Competition)
• Distilled in Scottish-style copper pot stills
• 100% malted rye
• Aged in new, charred American white oak casks

About

• The company started in 2011 but began their distillery in 2016 in Georgia. Their first release was a “silver” whisky (white dog) in Charleston called “American Spirit Whiskey”. Their first matured whiskey release was the Fiddler in 2016.
• Founders Jim Chasteen and Charlie Thompson met at University of Georgia
• Second licensed distillery in Atlanta since Prohibition and the first single malt whiskey in Atlanta