by TM Petaccia

Doc Porter’s Distillery was one of Charlotte’s original distilleries when it opened in 2014. It closed its doors in 2020, but is now releasing the final batch of its spirits, now that they have properly aged.

The first aged release, Doc Porter’s bourbon, is expected to start appearing on local ABC store shelves before Thanksgiving. This will be followed by aged rye and malt whiskey releases to be available by the end of the year. In addition, a very limited amount (800 bottles) of the last of Doc Porter’s vodka is expected to be available in the same time frame.

“These are whiskeys we made at our distillery on Peterson Drive,” says Doc Porter’s owner Andrew Porter. “Our lease was ending, and we were in the middle of COVID. We weren’t sure what we were going to do. It seemed risky to jump in and relocate at that time.”

Fortunately, his brewery/distillery peers stepped up to help preserve his business. Suffolk Punch stored the company’s distillery equipment, which was later sold to a new startup distillery in the North Carolina mountains. Great Wagon Road offered to store all of the barrels and will conduct the final blending and bottling.

The bourbon has been aging in 80 30-gallon barrels for four to six years, depending on the barrel. “We tasted about 40 of them,” Porter says. “We tasted across a lot of different fill dates. Getting a taste from a few barrels from each fill date gives us an idea of what the spectrum of taste is for that range. We came up with a blending plan of pulling in some of the older barrels with newer barrels to try to balance out the flavor a little bit more.”

“The older barrels were very smoky and oaky and on their own, almost too heavy to be enjoyed on their own,” he says. “There were nice flavors from the younger barrels. So we came up with a strategy and based on the way Great Wagon Road blends. It ends up being about six barrels per each blend based on the size of the blending. There will be 16 batches of the bourbon overall.

That translates to approximately 13,000 bottles of bourbon to be sold, with an additional 10,000 bottles combined between the rye and the malt whiskeys. All the whiskeys will sell for $60/bottle with the vodka selling at $40.

This final run will fully close the books on Doc Porter’s operations. “We were actually looking at expansion plans at that time we lost our lease,” Porter says, “but it was during COVID, and there were just a lot of uncertainties. Then we came to an agreement with another distillery in the state that was going to continue operations for us and start making the products again, but unfortunately didn’t end up working out.”

It was, again, Great Wagon Road who stepped in to offer bottling and releasing this “last call” batch. “They’ve always been really great partners to work with,” Porter says. “The whiskeys were getting to prime age. We wanted to start releasing them, so together we came up with the idea. This is the final bottling of the old whiskeys.”

When it comes to how to best enjoy his bourbon, Porter sticks to the classics. “An old-fashioned, or sometimes a boulevardier or a sazerac,” Porter says. “Those are the three classic cocktails that I usually go for.”

“But typically, I’m more of a straight sipper.”