April Discovery Club: Hardshore Distilling Co. Maine Straight Bourbon

The Lost Lantern April Discovery Club release is a Maine single cask bourbon from Hardshore Distilling Co. in Portland. It is our first “oated bourbon” – a bourbon with oats as the secondary grain in the mashbill – and also, believe it or not, one of just a handful of whiskies we’ve ever done from New England. 

Lost Lantern has now worked with distilleries in well over half the country. Barrels have come to us in Vermont from as far afield as Arizona, Nevada, North Dakota, Mississippi, and more. And yet there is one region of the country that we have very rarely featured: New England, our home turf. 

And there’s a pretty good reason for that. We think New England is a particularly tough place to make amazing whiskey. And that is due almost entirely to the climate; the other, less important factor is that it’s not a very populous region, especially northern New England, but that certainly hasn’t stopped Scotland! 

It’s not that New England can’t make great whiskey. It can. It does. Our Triple Eight single casks from last year are some of the finest whiskies we’ve ever put out. It just takes a little longer than elsewhere, because it’s such a cool climate. And that also means a larger investment for a distillery to do it right: more years of relying on startup funds while the whiskey ages, all while  not being quite sure how long it will take for the whiskey to reach its prime.

This is why pretty much all of the most exciting New England whiskey distilleries also do something else besides whiskey. Triple Eight, for instance, is attached to Cisco Brewers. Here in Vermont, Caledonia Spirits, best known for its Barr Hill Gin, has also been making rye whiskey for years but is just beginning to release it.  

Hardshore Distilling Co. and Shorebird Bourbon

In addition to whiskey, Maine’s Hardshore Distilling also makes gin, which happens to be one of the top gins in the state. Made with grain from founder Jordan Milne’s family’s farm in upstate New York, as well as botanicals like rosemary and mint, it is balanced, refreshing, and much more distinctive than most craft gins (partly because they actually make the neutral grain spirit base themselves in-house, which is more of a rarity than you might think).

But along the way, they’ve been making whiskey too. 

It took Hardshore four years to perfect its Hardshore gin recipe, before they ever launched it into market. It took even longer to perfect the whiskey: the distillery first opened its doors with the launch of Hardshore gin in 2016, but didn’t launch its first whiskey until late 2023.

Now here’s where things get a little complex: the distillery is called Hardshore Distilling. That’s what it says on the Lost Lantern label too. But the bourbon itself is called Shorebird Bourbon, to keep it at least a little distinct from the gin. 

Hardshore didn’t release a drop of Shorebird until it was at least four years old, fully aged in full-size 53 gallon barrels. The whiskey is actually fairly reminiscent of some of the estate whiskies we’ve released: all the grains were grown on a single family farm which is in the owner’s family, it just happens to be in Central New York rather than in Maine. Yet the bourbon also has a distinctly soft maritime character from being aged mere blocks from the ocean.

The Discovery Club Cask

Hardshore is a fairly experimental distillery when it comes to whiskey, especially when it comes to mashbills. We landed on one of the more unusual styles that they’ve played with for our Lost Lantern Hardshore Distillery Discovery Club cask.

The April Discovery Club cask is an oated bourbon, which is extremely unusual; oats aren’t typically found in any mashbill, and certainly not as the secondary grain. This is partly because oats are not as widely grown in the U.S. as corn, rye, and wheat. Distilling with oats is also messy. Rye is known for being messy, but oats are worse. 

What do the oats add? That’s for you to find out, but in my opinion they add warmth, structure, and a comforting cereal note. Not as soft as wheat or as spicy as rye, it manifests instead as heft, making this whiskey taste both weightier and older than you might expect.

Aged for 4 years in a 53-gallon barrel, it was made from 62% corn, 35% oats, and 3% malted barley. The nose is soft and inviting, with notes of hazelnuts, warm spices, and maple oatmeal. The palate has notes of maple sugar, cardamom, and rounded oak. Warm and balanced. 

We’re very excited to finally be releasing our first straight bourbon from New England–it has been a long time coming, and I expect we will work with Hardshore many more times over the years ahead as their whiskey program continues to expand and mature. 

I hope you enjoy this taste of the sea. Discovery Club bottles will start shipping to members on April 25th!