Eastside Distilling Announces Its First American Single Malt Whiskey

Source:  Eastside Distilling, Inc.

Award Winning 2-Year-Old Single Malt Goes Into Limited Release Today From Eastside’s Big Bottom Distilling Ltd.

Eastside Distilling, Inc. (NASDAQ: EAST), makers of craft spirits, today introduced the Company’s first authentic American Single Malt Whiskey. The new product was distilled “from grain to glass” by Big Bottom Distilling (“BBD”), Eastside Distilling’s Hillsboro, Oregon-based subsidiary. The new BBD American Single Malt has already won two very prestigious craft spirits industry awards, a Gold Medal from the 2018 Francisco World Spirits Competition and Best of Category (with 93 points) from the 2018 Los Angeles International Spirits Competition. A limited number of bottles of the new release will be available at liquor stores in Oregon, the BBD tasting room in Hillsboro, OR, as well as at Eastside’s tasting rooms on 7^th Street, Washington Square Mall, Clackamas and Woodburn.

After being aged for a minimum of two years in new and used American Oak barrels, the 91-proof whiskey can legally be designated “American Single Malt Whiskey.” The process uses a premium two-row malted barley, grown in the Pacific Northwest, and BBD’s proprietary yeast strains that were painstakingly developed for BBD single malts by veteran Lead Distiller Travis Schoney. Mr. Schoney served several years as a Distiller and Blender at craft distiller, High West Distilling in Park City, Utah, prior to its acquisition by Constellation Brands. BBD American Single Malt Whiskey is distilled on premises, barreled in American oak and bottled entirely in-bond, and therefore meets the rigorous standards for the new “American Single Malt” category in the process of being established by the U.S. government.

Grover Wickersham, Chairman and CEO of Eastside Distilling, said, “The launch of our new American Single Malt Whiskey is an important milestone. We see American Single Malt as a new and exciting category of super-premium spirit. In terms of skill and artisanship, American distillers are at the world pinnacle. No one can doubt that American single malt will in time stand shoulder to shoulder with the best of Scotch and Japanese single malt whiskeys. An important barrier to entry for those who chose to enter the category is that to qualify as American Single Malt, a whiskey must be a ‘grain to glass’ spirit, distilled, barreled and bottled at the distillery. We think that offering a top quality single malt will help us create shareholder value.”

Mr. Wickersham continued, “We tasted our new malt whiskey in barrel a year or so ago and were blown away by how well it was progressing. Frankly, it was a major factor in our wanting to bring the BBD crew into the Eastside family in the 2017 acquisition. We are excited by the high quality of this first release. Given the rave reviews by top spirits critics, we obviously are not feeling disappointed. We couldn’t be prouder of Travis, Ted and the rest of the team. Our only regret is that production is highly, highly limited right now in terms of cases per year, but plans are fully in place to ramp up our single malt distilling capacity several fold this year.”

Big Bottom Distilling, LLC was founded by Oregon craft spirits pioneer, Ted Pappas, in 2010 and a majority interest was acquired by Eastside Distilling in 2017. The BBD team of Lead Distiller Travis Schoney and Assistant Distiller Kyle LoGiudice work together with Eastside Master Distiller, Mel Heim, and her Eastside team, to produce a full range of over twenty-five award winning craft spirits.

About Eastside Distilling
Eastside Distilling, Inc. (NASDAQ: EAST) has been producing high-quality, award-winning craft spirits in Portland, Oregon since 2008. The company is distinguished by its highly decorated product lineup that includes Burnside Bourbon, West End American Whiskey, Goose Hollow Reserve, Below Deck Rums, Portland Potato Vodka, Hue-Hue Coffee Rum and a distinctive line of fruit infused spirits. Eastside Distilling is majority owner of Big Bottom Distilling (makers of The Ninety-One Gin, Navy Strength Gin and Delta Rye whiskey) and the Redneck Riviera Whiskey Co. All Eastside, Big Bottom and Redneck Riviera spirits are crafted from natural ingredients for quality and taste. Eastside’s MotherLode Bottling subsidiary is one of the Northwest’s leading independent spirit bottlers and ready-to-drink canners. For more information visit: www.eastsidedistilling.com or follow the company on Twitter and Facebook.