InsideHook — Review: Sourced From All Over the US, Lost Lantern Is a Whiskey Nerd’s Dream

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What we’re drinking: Lost Lantern’s American Vatted Malt Edition #1 and five Spring 2021 releases/collaborations.

Where it’s from: Founded by Nora Ganley-Roper and Adam Polonski and launched last fall — delayed from an April 2020 start because of you-know-what — Lost Lantern is an independent bottler of American whiskey.

“We source different casks and single malts from around the country,” explains Polonski, a former whiskey journalist. “This model has existed in Scotland for 200 years. It’s a great discovery method.”

The idea here is Lost Lantern is not only shining a light on smaller, regional distilleries, but also getting that whiskey out to a larger swath of the country. As well, these releases are specifically designed for whiskey connessours — they’re non-chill filtered and cask strength.

Why we’re drinking this: Because this is rare whiskey from underappreciated or obscure craft distilleries … and it’s not even stuff those distillers are releasing on their own. “This is the stuff we’d want to drink ourselves,” says Ganley-Roper, who got her start in spirits retail at New York’s Astor Wines and Spirits. “Besides getting this stuff out there, we’re also releasing these expressions from distilleries where the whiskey doesn’t fit their standard profile. We’ll hear from these distillers, ‘I was holding on to these three special casks and I want to get them out, but I don’t have a pipeline for them.’”