This past Friday night, American Single Malts proved to be an exciting new territory for certain. Some were quite good -- very good, in fact.  Others showed more promise than pizazz.  But oh, the promise...  The tasted whiskies were:

We came to agree that American Single Malts are a unique and deserving category all to themselves, rich with possibilities (both realized and yet to come). Every one of these distillers is a maverick -- inspired by tradition yet bound by none of it.  As you view each whiskey's tasting notes, you'll see a small blurb on each distiller to give you an idea of what we're talking about.  These guys are willing to embrace any taboo -- from mixing wood chips into the barrel to speed aging, to distilling whiskey from finished market-ready beer.

The bottom line is, these distillers have opened up a whole new world of flavors.  In the same way that Scotch whisky can be so variable -- and so variously enjoyable -- so too can this nascent category of American single malts.  If the range of American single malt distilleries were to approach that of Scotch -- or even one-fifth that much -- we may very well be looking at a whole new world of whiskey.