Ep. 243: ASW Distillery with Justin Manglitz Show Notes
ASW Distillery: Atlanta Whiskey, Rye Malt, Fiddler Bourbon, and Georgia After Prohibition
This episode brings the podcast back to Georgia.
The last couple of Georgia stops were Distillery of Modern Art and Doc Brown’s, but ASW Distillery in Atlanta sits in a slightly different place in the state’s modern whiskey story. ASW is one of Georgia’s early post-Prohibition distilleries, one of the first to help define what legal Georgia whiskey could look like in the modern era, and a distillery whose product map now sprawls across rye malt, bourbon, double malt, American single malt, apple brandy, gin, vodka, sourced whiskey, finished whiskey, Georgia oak, baseball bats, Big Green Eggs, and probably a few ideas Justin Manglitz hasn’t admitted to yet.
Justin is ASW’s master distiller, though he resisted the title until he felt he had earned it. That tracks. He is not a polished corporate whiskey figure dropped into a brand story. He is a rural Georgia kid, a homebrewer, an old-time fiddler, a former homebrew shop owner, a history obsessive, and someone who came to ASW with a bottle of homemade single malt instead of a résumé.
Some people submit cover letters. Justin brought liquid evidence.
American Spirit Whiskey Before ASW Distillery
The ASW story begins before Justin joined.
Jim Chasteen and Charlie Thompson started with American Spirit Whiskey, a white or lightly aged spirit made through a contract partner during the white whiskey and moonshine-adjacent boom of the early 2010s. It was meant to be fun, local, and a way into the spirits business before the full distillery existed.
But the bigger plan was always to build something of their own.
Justin came into the picture through Jim’s family. Justin had run Blockader Homebrew Supply in Athens, had been making beer, wine, and quietly experimenting with distillation, and had a homemade single malt that made its way into Jim and Charlie’s hands. They tasted it and decided to build a distillery.
It took a few years to get there, but ASW made its first batch a little over ten years ago. That first whiskey was Resurgens Rye, made from 100% malted rye.
That choice says a lot about the distillery.
They could have started with something safer. They started with rye malt.
Georgia Whiskey After a Century of Dry Counties
Georgia has a much longer alcohol history than its modern legal distilling landscape suggests.
Justin points out that Georgia adopted statewide Prohibition more than a decade before national Prohibition. Even after Repeal, much of the state remained dry in one form or another for generations. When he was growing up, dry counties, dry towns, Sunday sales bans, and informal shot houses were still part of the landscape.
So when ASW began distilling in Atlanta, it was not stepping into a living, visible whiskey industry with inherited infrastructure and local regulatory memory. It was helping rebuild from the other side of a century-long interruption.
That context makes the “firsts” more meaningful, even if Justin himself does not seem all that interested in being first for its own sake.
ASW has released Georgia’s first legally labeled straight bourbon, a whiskey labeled with Georgia oak, a single malt bourbon made from malted corn, and Duality, a double malt whiskey that does not fit neatly into existing American categories. Some of those firsts are Georgia-specific. Some are broader. But the more interesting point is that ASW did not chase novelty as a marketing stunt. Justin tends to start with history, technique, flavor, or curiosity, then the label catches up if it can.
The TTB, bless its little bureaucratic heart, occasionally has to make room.
Justin Manglitz and the Liquid Résumé
Justin’s path to ASW runs through homebrewing, Appalachian music, rural Georgia, and a tasting club called the Yeastie Boys.
Before he was a professional distiller, Justin was making all-grain beer, wine, and spirits. The Yeastie Boys would get together and taste categories: Islay single malt, Jamaican rum, different beer styles, whatever someone could bring. In those tastings, Justin encountered Anchor Distilling’s Old Potrero rye malt whiskeys, especially the 19th Century Style Rye, which became an important early influence.
That influence shows up clearly in Resurgens. When Jim and Charlie wanted to make rye, Justin asked: why not rye malt?
He also cites Nearest Green’s legacy as a major source of respect and inspiration, and there is an Irish thread too. Justin’s grandmother was born in County Offaly, not far from Tullamore, and after college he even emailed Cooley to ask if he could come work there.
They said no.
So he opened a homebrew shop.
The road to Atlanta whiskey occasionally takes scenic little detours through rejected Irish distillery emails.
A Team Built Around Trust, Art, and Palate
One of the most striking things about ASW is how many people have stayed.
That is increasingly rare in craft spirits. Distilleries burn people out. People move to bigger companies, smaller companies, startup projects, consulting work, or whatever job promises fewer barrels to move in July.
At ASW, the production team has had unusual continuity.
Justin started as the production team. As the workload grew, he brought in people he trusted, often from brewing, art, music, coffee, and the broader creative world. Drake, who later left to open Strange Duck Brewing, came in as a brewer. Wit Hagemann started on the bottling line and stood out not just because he worked hard, but because he had a serious artistic sensibility and a highly trained coffee palate. Previn came through the tasting room and bottling side, proved himself through palate and problem-solving, and eventually stepped into distilling gin and vodka at the Battery after Jerry McCall moved to Spain.
Justin’s philosophy is fairly straightforward: find good people, give them room, and do not peck them to death.
That has allowed ASW to keep institutional knowledge while also giving people space to explore. Not every project becomes a flagship. Some exist because someone had an idea worth trying. That matters in a distillery with this many products and this many moving parts.
ASW is a whiskey company, yes. It is also a clubhouse for people who take flavor seriously without pretending flavor has to wear a lab coat all the time.
Fiddler Bourbon and the Art of “Fiddling”
Fiddler began almost by happenstance.
ASW was offered barrels of MGP’s 45% wheat bourbon at a good price. Justin tasted them, liked them, and the team bought them. Rather than simply release sourced bourbon, they built a brand around Justin’s role as an old-time fiddler and his tendency to fiddle with whiskey.
The name works because it is literal and figurative. Justin plays the fiddle. He also takes sourced whiskey and adjusts it, blends it, finishes it, adds Georgia oak, pairs it with ASW’s own pot-distilled bourbon, or otherwise makes it more ASW than MGP.
That flexibility has made Fiddler one of ASW’s most important brands. It includes wheated bourbon, Georgia Heartwood, Soloist, special finishes, single barrels, and partnerships. It has also become the brand ASW can use more easily outside Georgia, where distributors may prefer one clear umbrella rather than a shelf full of separate house brands.
That may even affect Resurgens, which Justin noted may move into the Fiddler line for out-of-state clarity. The liquid remains the same kind of ASW thinking. The package may change to help people find it.
That is not compromise. That is whiskey learning to speak retail.
Resurgens Rye and the Case for Malted Rye
Resurgens was ASW’s first distillation and remains one of its clearest statements.
It is made from malted rye rather than cereal rye. That distinction is central. Malted rye brings a different texture, different sweetness, different grain character, and a more beer-informed path into whiskey. Justin prefers rye malt, and early inspiration from Old Potrero gave him a model for how expressive it could be.
Resurgens also reflects ASW’s broader preference for malted grain. Malt costs more than raw cereal grain, but it brings advantages. It does not need the same cereal cooking step that corn or unmalted grain requires, which saves time, energy, and labor. In a small urban distillery where one shift is the practical limit, that production reality carries weight.
Justin also values consistency. Resurgens relies on malt suppliers that can deliver a consistent rye malt profile, while special releases like Resurgens Heirloom can explore locally grown Abruzzi rye malted by Riverbend Malthouse.
That split feels right: flagship consistency, experimental local grain where it makes sense.
Duality and Cherrywood Smoked Barley
Duality is one of ASW’s defining releases.
It combines malted rye and cherrywood-smoked malted barley, creating what ASW calls a double malt whiskey. There is no official TTB box for that idea, which is part of the fun. The whiskey sits somewhere between rye malt, smoked malt, and American creative whiskey.
The cherrywood smoked barley is particularly important.
Justin distinguishes between smoke used as part of kilning and smoke added intentionally for flavor. The cherrywood malt ASW uses is flavor-smoked, meaning the smoke is there because they want the smoke character, not because it was the historical drying fuel. Early on, the spirit can show barbecue and bacon notes. With time, that smoke breaks down into cherry, cola, chocolate, and softer complexity.
Some barrels of Duality can apparently taste uncannily like Cherry Coke. ASW usually blends those back into balance, because a full bottle of Cherry Coke whiskey sounds hilarious until you consider having to finish it.
That blending decision gets at Justin’s larger style. He likes flavor, but he also wants balance. Weird can be wonderful. Weird still has to drink.
Chocolate Malt as Seasoning, Not a Meal
ASW uses small amounts of chocolate malt, often around 3%, in several mash bills.
That is enough.
Chocolate malt is powerful, and Justin treats it like seasoning rather than the protein in the dish. Historically, dark malts could help acidify mash in places with carbonate-heavy water, counteracting high alkalinity and helping brewers hit a better mash pH. ASW does not need it for that reason. Atlanta’s water comes from mountain granite sources and works well for mashing once chlorine is removed.
For ASW, chocolate malt is about flavor and complexity. It adds darker tones, depth, and structure without turning the mash into stout whiskey.
A little goes a long way. Five percent can already feel like someone got enthusiastic near the spice drawer.
Yeast, Predictability, and Why Malt Is the Playground
Given Justin’s homebrewing background, it would be easy to assume ASW would run dozens of yeast experiments.
They do not.
Justin uses a small number of yeast strains he knows well. The reason is practical and philosophical. Yeast can create important flavor, but it can also be unpredictable, especially without temperature-controlled fermentation. Some yeast-derived compounds taste one way in new make, then become something else after years in oak. Isoamyl acetate, for instance, can read solventy when young, banana-like later, and then fade into a subtler background with more age.
That makes yeast experimentation a long wager.
Malt, on the other hand, gives Justin a more predictable flavor tool. After decades of brewing, he knows what different malts tend to do. He can build flavor through rye malt, corn malt, cherrywood-smoked barley, chocolate rye malt, peated malt, pecan-smoked wheat, or single malt recipes with far more confidence than he can with a yeast strain whose full consequences may take six years to reveal.
That is not anti-science. It is a distiller choosing the variable he understands best.
Grain-On Distillation, Big Pipes, and Practical Engineering
ASW’s distillery design is a hybrid.
Justin describes the stills as part American and part Scottish in philosophy: grain-on distillation and an American-style need for agitation, paired with pot stills that also reflect his love of Scottish single malt. The system was built with practical choices that sound small until you realize how often they prevent catastrophe.
One of those decisions was gravity draining through large-diameter pipes rather than relying on smaller pipes and pumps for thick mash.
That sounds obvious once you hear it. Thick mash clogs things. Pumps break. Pipes jam. Hot grain is mean. Justin came at the problem as an outsider, thinking less about what distilleries usually did and more about what would work if you were building it on a farm and wanted fewer problems.
That is one of the quiet themes of ASW. The headline releases are wild enough, but some of the most important choices are hidden in plumbing, drainage, agitators, and the little engineering decisions that let the distillery make rye malt, corn malt, smoked malt, and high-malt bourbon without turning every production day into a siege.
The sexy stuff gets the bottle copy. The big pipes keep the whiskey moving.
Stills, Cuts, and Building Flavor Before the Barrel
ASW’s core whiskey production runs through Vendome copper pot stills, including a 500-gallon wash still and an 800-gallon spirit still.
Justin takes cuts by hand and by sensory judgment. He is not trying to make the cleanest possible white spirit. He wants flavor built in before maturation, then enough wood influence to shape the whiskey without erasing the distillate.
That distillate-first approach runs through the portfolio. Resurgens, Duality, Tire Fire, Druid Hill, Soloist, and the single malts all start with mash bills intended to create flavor before the barrel enters the room.
The barrels still matter enormously. Justin simply does not want them doing all the work.
That is one reason he is comfortable using new oak in many places, despite his love of single malts and used barrels. ASW’s spirits are flavorful enough to stand up to new oak, and over time Justin’s style has developed in conversation with those barrels. If forced to choose only new oak or used oak forever, he said he would choose new oak.
Not because he dislikes subtlety.
Because his distillate has enough muscle to fight back.
Georgia Heartwood and the Oak Inside the Oak
Fiddler Georgia Heartwood is one of ASW’s most personal projects.
Years before the whiskey was ready, Justin and his father harvested Georgia oak trees. They split out the heartwood, separating it from sapwood, then seasoned it for years before using it as staves. Those staves were toasted or charred and inserted into barrels, creating a Georgia oak finishing component layered onto the sourced wheated bourbon.
Heartwood is intentionally oak-forward. Justin has described it as the “IPA of bourbon,” a whiskey for drinkers who like oak and want it turned up.
The Georgia part has been debated. Some reps or distributors have wondered whether “Georgia” helps or hurts the label. Justin seems open to whatever helps people taste the whiskey, but personally, I hope Georgia stays. The point is not only that ASW is located in Georgia. It is that the whiskey has been physically shaped with Georgia wood harvested and prepared by the distillery.
That is the kind of specificity drinkers increasingly care about. Not just oak. Georgia oak. Not just finishing. Georgia Heartwood.
Big Green Egg and Toasted Georgia Oak
One of ASW’s more Atlanta-specific partnerships is with Big Green Egg.
Big Green Egg is based in Atlanta, and the collaboration began with Justin taking uncharred Georgia Heartwood staves and toasting them on an actual Big Green Egg instead of charring them in the usual way. Toasting transforms the wood differently from charring. Char creates a carbon layer and a red layer underneath. A long toast can turn more of the wood into that thermally modified red layer, building deeper flavor without the same char structure.
Justin toasts enough staves for one barrel at a time, spending hours with each batch.
The result became more than a novelty. It is a legitimate flavor tool, another example of ASW taking a local object, applying real production thought, and turning it into whiskey rather than swag.
This is what local collaboration should look like: not a logo slapped on a bottle, but a process that changes the liquid.
Tire Fire and Peat Without the Band-Aids
Tire Fire is ASW’s peated American single malt, made with heavily peated malt and cut to emphasize the kind of peat Justin actually enjoys.
He likes smoky phenols. He is less interested in the medicinal, bandage-heavy, Chloraseptic side of peat. So ASW cuts Tire Fire to retain smoke and phenolic character while reducing the rubbery or plastic medicinal notes that can dominate some heavily peated whiskies.
That makes Tire Fire an interesting gateway for drinkers who think they do not like peat. I remember trying it years ago, before I was really into peated whiskey, and still enjoying it. That probably says something about Justin’s cut philosophy. The PPM can be high, but PPM alone does not tell you what kind of smoke you are getting.
Two whiskies can have similar peat levels and drink completely differently. Tire Fire knows which side of that divide it wants to occupy.
Druid Hill and the Irish Thread
Druid Hill is ASW’s Irish pot still-inspired whiskey, made with a mash bill that includes unmalted barley.
That ties back to Justin’s Irish family connection and his appreciation for older pure pot still whiskey styles. It also connects, strangely enough, to the broader revival conversation happening in Ireland, where distillers like Brendan Carty at Killowen are pushing for a fuller recognition of historical mixed mash bills.
ASW’s version is not Irish whiskey, of course. It is an Atlanta whiskey made with an Irish idea in the background.
That distinction is useful. The best distilleries borrow intelligently. They do not pretend geography is transferable. Druid Hill is not trying to become Redbreast in Georgia humidity. It is ASW asking what unmalted barley can do inside its own system.
That is a much better question.
Syncopation and the Single Malt Bourbon Question
Syncopation may be one of ASW’s strangest, most revealing releases.
It was made from 100% malted corn and labeled as a single malt bourbon. Justin did not invent the idea out of thin air. Malted corn has deep roots in Southern whiskey making, particularly in settings where barley did not grow well. Farm distillers would malt corn, use it while it was still usable, then sometimes make a special batch entirely from malted corn.
ASW revived that idea and asked the TTB whether “single malt bourbon” could go on the label.
The TTB said yes.
Then American single malt regulations began moving toward a barley-only definition, leaving oddities like Syncopation in a gray area. Justin has only one barrel left and does not seem overly worried about the label’s future. He would have preferred a broader American single malt definition that recognized America’s history of malting grains beyond barley, especially corn and rye. But he also wants American single malt to grow as a category people recognize and respect.
If barley-only helps that happen, he can live with it.
That is a very Justin answer: historically annoyed, practically calm.
Fiddler Soloist, Unison, and the Language of Music
Fiddler’s naming system comes from music.
Unison was built around ASW’s own pot-distilled bourbon playing alongside sourced 45% wheat bourbon, like two fiddlers playing the same melody. Soloist is the in-house bourbon by itself. The name works because it reflects both product structure and Justin’s musical background.
Soloist also marks a shift. As demand for Fiddler grew, ASW needed clearer ways to distinguish sourced-and-fiddled whiskey from fully in-house whiskey. Soloist gives the pot-distilled bourbon its own identity while keeping it inside the Fiddler family.
This is one of the reasons ASW can be hard to summarize. It is not a single linear brand. It is a house of brands and ideas: Fiddler for bourbon and rye, Resurgens for rye malt, Duality for double malt, single malts under their own names, plus collaborations and one-offs.
That can be a lot for a shelf tag.
On a podcast, it is the good kind of problem.
Warehouses, Microclimates, and Atlanta Aging
ASW ages whiskey in multiple spaces, including Armour Drive and Lee + White.
The aging environment is not a classic Kentucky rickhouse. Some spaces are old warehouses, partly insulated by surrounding buildings and thick ceilings, with less dramatic temperature movement than many people might expect from Atlanta. Justin says some of his warehouses age closer to Ireland or Scotland than Kentucky or Tennessee.
There are exceptions. ASW has found microclimates over time: spots where proof rises, areas that run hotter, places better suited to smaller barrels or particular experiments. Syncopation spent time in one such proof-raising spot. Their first barrel, being held for the tenth anniversary, was moved into that environment and climbed over 140 proof.
Justin is not a hazmat fetishist, though he understands the market. His preference is balanced evaporation rather than proof escalation for its own sake. But if the whiskey wants to become a little ridiculous and the anniversary bottle benefits, well, Atlanta has earned a few ridiculous things.
Cask Strength and Letting Drinkers Add the Water
Justin has come around on cask strength.
At first, he resisted it because proofing was part of designing the whiskey. Choosing the right bottling proof gave him another tool, another way to shape the final experience. Cask strength removed one arrow from the quiver.
Over time, he has come to see cask strength as a gift to the drinker. If the whiskey comes out of the barrel at that proof, the consumer can decide what to do next. Drink it neat. Add three drops. Add a splash. Work through the glass as it opens.
In other words, the distiller does not have to make every final decision.
That is especially true for single barrels and private picks, where part of the appeal is getting something less blended, less adjusted, and more directly connected to one cask’s personality.
ASW now offers more of those opportunities across Fiddler, Resurgens, Duality, single malts, and other releases.
Lost Lantern and ASW Beyond Georgia
Lost Lantern’s 2026 spring collection helped reintroduce ASW and Fiddler to a wider national whiskey audience.
For ASW, selling Fiddler barrels to another independent bottler was a notable step. Justin’s whiskey is personal to him. Letting someone else bottle it under their own label requires trust, and Lost Lantern’s reputation in the enthusiast community helped make that decision easier.
The result matters beyond those specific barrels.
ASW has long had strong local identity, especially through Atlanta, the Braves, and the Georgia whiskey scene. Lost Lantern puts that whiskey in front of drinkers who may not have been able to find it otherwise, especially those already interested in craft whiskey, regional identity, and unusual American distillate.
Sometimes distribution is not just logistics. Sometimes it is translation.
Lost Lantern helped translate ASW for people outside the Southeast.
The Braves, Chin Music, and Atlanta Visibility
ASW’s partnership with the Atlanta Braves created Chin Music, one of the more visible local whiskey collaborations in the country.
The timing was almost absurd. The Battery lease was being signed just as COVID was about to become a global crisis. Justin, who follows world events closely, was not exactly eager to sign a major lease at that moment. The world went sideways anyway, and ASW built the Battery location during the pandemic.
That site makes gin and vodka, gives ASW visibility with Braves fans, and ties the brand to a team whose reach extends well beyond Atlanta into surrounding states. For a Georgia distillery trying to build recognition, that matters.
Chin Music also includes finishing with maple from baseball bats, tying the product to the sport in a way that changes the whiskey rather than merely decorating the label.
Again, the ASW pattern holds: local partnership, actual production consequence.
Craft, Scale, and Staying a Family Business
Toward the end of the conversation, Justin talked about what he hopes ASW contributes to craft distilling.
ASW is unusual because it works seriously on both sides of the craft/sourced line. It makes a lot in-house, but it also sources, blends, finishes, and fiddles with whiskey at a scale that few craft distilleries attempt. That can make the story harder to tell, but it also reflects how modern American whiskey actually works.
Justin hopes ASW has helped craft distilling grow while remaining a real force in the broader American whiskey industry. That concern feels especially timely. The market has tightened. Consumers are more selective. Brands that survived the boom now have to prove they belong in the next phase.
He also hopes ASW can keep the family-business feel as it grows. During COVID, ASW did not lay off any full-time employees who depended on the company to support their families. That kind of decision does not show up in a mash bill, but it tells you something about the company.
Whiskey is made from grain, yeast, oak, and water.
Distilleries are made from people.
What ASW Says About Georgia Whiskey
ASW is hard to compress into one tagline.
It is Atlanta whiskey. It is Georgia whiskey. It is a rye malt distillery, a bourbon blender, a single malt producer, a double malt oddball, a gin and vodka operation, a Braves partner, a Big Green Egg collaborator, a Lost Lantern barrel source, and a place where musicians, baristas, homebrewers, historians, and tinkerers have somehow built a cohesive production culture.
That range could be messy. Sometimes it probably is.
But the throughline is clear: flavor first, history close behind, and enough humor to keep the whole machine from taking itself too seriously.
ASW is not trying to make Georgia taste like Kentucky. It is not trying to make Atlanta taste like Scotland. It is taking Southern whiskey history, malt tradition, sourced bourbon, pot still production, local oak, smoked grain, and a stubbornly creative team, then turning that into something that could only really happen where it is happening.
That is the good stuff.
The whiskey is the proof, but the story is the fun part.
ASW Distillery
Website: https://www.aswdistillery.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aswdistillery/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aswdistillery/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ASWDistilleryAtlanta
Fiddler Whiskey
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