Introducing ‘Independent Spirits’ and A New Whiskey: Shadow & Light
Lost Lantern celebrated its fifth anniversary last week, and we marked the occasion with a special fifth anniversary drop – a revisit of the first four distilleries we ever released single casks from.
But our fifth anniversary celebration doesn’t end there. In fact, that’s really just the beginning!
Today, I’m very excited to announce two things: first, our inclusion in the new four-part documentary Independent Spirits: A Whisky Series, the first-ever documentary series about independent bottlers, and second, our release of Shadow & Light, a new limited-edition smoked blended malt created in partnership with the documentary.
‘Independent Spirits: A Whisky Series’
Last year, we had a conversation with the director and producer of The Water of Life, the 2021 film about the history and present of Scotch. We are big fans of their work, and so we were very excited when we heard the team’s new project focused on independent bottlers. We ended up chatting with them and learned that we were actually a good fit for one part of the new series they were creating.
And that’s how Nora found herself on a last-minute plane trip to Los Angeles so she could be interviewed on camera for the project. She plays a prominent role in the last episode of the four-part series, which is focused on the future of independent bottling and companies like Lost Lantern that are reinventing this historic model in new places, new ways, and with new types of whiskey.
And I have to say, it’s both professionally very cool to see Lost Lantern featured in a docuseries, and personally very cool to see Nora get her big-screen debut!
The entire series is a fascinating look at the world of independent bottlers, with a primary focus on independent bottlers in Scotland. The series includes numerous Lost Lantern friends, including Cara Laing of Douglas Laing, Joshua and Jason from Single Cask Nation, and Holly Seidewand from First Fill Spirits. It’s a lot of fun, and you’ll learn a lot!
The series is currently available to watch through Tubi and Amazon, with more options to come soon.
Shadow & Light: A Limited-Edition Whiskey
When the Water of Life film first came out, a number of companies featured in it, including our friends at Single Cask Nation, released special limited-edition whiskies in partnership with the film. We thought the release of Independent Spirits: A Whisky Series was a perfect opportunity for us to do the same thing. In fact, we used it as a good excuse for Nora to blend a whiskey we had been thinking about for a while.
Shadow & Light is a smoky blended malt that is designed with a flavor profile that smoked Scotch lovers will love, even as it features both peated and mesquite-smoked whiskies. It is a marriage of tradition and innovation, of the oldest style of whisky in the world (peated malt) and one of the newest (mesquite-smoked American Single Malt).
Here at Lost Lantern, we firmly believe that whiskies can have ‘sequels.’ And Shadow & Light is explicitly intended as a sequel to Flame, our mesquite-smoked blended malt, and Shadow, our peated blended malt. Each of those highlighted different American takes on smoked whiskey. Shadow & Light brings those two styles together for the first time.
The blend features whiskies from four distilleries: it contains peated American single malts (all made from grain smoked with Scottish peat) from Cedar Ridge in Iowa and McCarthy’s in Oregon, as well as mesquite-smoked single malts from Whiskey Del Bac in Arizona and Santa Fe Spirits in New Mexico.
The final blend, transparently labeled as always (and featuring the logo of the docuseries on the front), was bottled at its natural cask strength of 121.3 proof. It is a whiskey that is warm, bright, cool, and dark all at the same time, with a roiling smoke throughout. Limited to just 415 bottles, we think this is probably the most traditionally appealing blended malt we’ve ever made, at least for a Scotch lover’s palate.
The whiskey is now officially available to purchase, and we’ll also be holding a series of tastings of it alongside screenings of the docuseries… more on that soon! For now, you can check out the trailer below!
Our Own Roots & Inspiration
We are truly, genuinely proud to be a part of this particular project. In fact, our inclusion feels like a real validation of what we’ve always intended Lost Lantern to be.
Sometimes people ask us how we came up with the idea for Lost Lantern – sourcing whiskey from distilleries but putting their names on their labels alongside ours? To the uninitiated, it can seem highly unusual, or at least a little curious. But Scotch lovers know that the basics of this model were not our idea. Sourcing whiskey with full transparency has been around for a very long time, just not in the United States. And Scotch lovers who encounter us often have a very different reaction: “Oh! You’re like the Scotch independent bottlers, but for American whiskey.”
And that is indeed exactly what we are, and always have been. We explicitly modeled Lost Lantern on Scotch independent bottlers like Douglas Laing, Gordon & MacPhail, Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and others. And that’s why we’re so thrilled about this new docuseries, and particularly excited to be included in it as the first independent bottler focused on American whiskey.
It’s why we even decided to go to Scotland for the premiere back in March (also because going to Scotland is a lot of fun!). We were able to meet many other independent bottlers in person for the first time, and of course got to enjoy a lot of wonderful Scotch while we were there.
We highly encourage you to check out the documentary series on whatever platform is most convenient to you. Our recommended pairings: a bowl of popcorn and a dram of Shadow and Light!