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From Palo Santo–smoked single malt to koji bourbon, Matchbook Distilling puts novelty into everything it does.
Susannah Skiver Barton · May 15, 2025
In whiskey, the term “innovation” has become as overused as “small batch,” to the point that it’s now effectively meaningless. Most producers who tout their innovative offerings frequently make reference to a new barrel finish, or sometimes just a higher-than-usual proof. These attributes, while novel for individual brands, break no new ground in the broader whiskey world.
Finding a distiller that’s actually doing something original has gotten easier thanks to the craft spirits boom, but it’s still pretty rare. That’s what makes Matchbook Distilling Co., a small distillery in Greenport, Long Island, so exciting. Founder Leslie Merinoff-Kwasnieski has received lots of attention for her wild and weird products like Ritual Sister, a smoked pineapple brandy, and Late Embers, inspired by mezcal and made from sunchokes and honey. But it’s the whiskies that she has quietly been laying down for years that could end up being Matchbook’s most intriguing, unusual, and—yes—truly innovative spirits.
“I want to be part of the conversation on terroir and grain and the culture of whiskey,” Merinoff-Kwasnieski says, explaining that, until she started making her own whiskey, her favorites were Islay single malts like Laphroaig and Bruichladdich: “[E]xpressions of not only the grain, but the sea. Now of course I live in this small fishing village and I try to make my spirits this expression of our sandy soils and our salty air.”
Merinoff-Kwasnieski is going about it by iterating almost every point of the process, starting with the grain. Matchbook uses only organic grains, primarily grown by Thor Oechsner in the Finger Lakes and malted, when necessary, by Andrea Stanley of Valley Malt. Matchbook uses Danko rye in one of its bourbon mashbills and landrace barley—traditional varieties adapted to local agriculture, grown for the distillery by Jeff Trout of Poormon Farms—for its single malts.
Some of those grains get smoked. Merinoff-Kwasnieski has experimented with a variety of novel fuel sources, among them sandalwood, palo santo, and, recently, seaweed—a more sustainable swap for peat. “Farming seaweed pulls carbon into the water, which is good for the environment,” she explains, acknowledging that even though burning the seaweed to malt barley has a carbon cost, she sees the overall impact of supporting the industry as positive.
At the next stage—fermentation—Merinoff-Kwasnieski again looks to do things differently from the usual ways. Matchbook’s standard grain fermentation period is two weeks, using both ale and whiskey yeast. “I’m really into ester profiles and aldehydes,” she says. “I’m looking to push the flavors of fermentation to create depth.” One result of this is an intensity of aroma across all of Matchbook’s whiskies. (See tasting notes below.)
For a small amount of bourbon, Merinoff-Kwasnieski has employed an additional step that takes place just before and during fermentation: implementing the koji process. This method, taken from Japan’s shochu tradition, serves to stand in for malted barley in the mashing and fermentation stages of whiskey making. Koji mold is combined with grain—in this case, puffed corn—to unlock its sugars (saccharification), which are then accessible to the yeast as food. For most bourbons, saccharification is spurred by the use of malted barley and enzymes. Koji eliminates the need for these ingredients, and it also adds a unique flavor.
Merinoff-Kwasnieski was inspired by Jokichi Takamine, a pioneering Japanese distiller who worked in the American whiskey industry in the 1890s and later, incidentally, at the company founded by her three-times great-grandfather, Hiram Walker. Takamine’s work focused on koji as a more efficient and cost-effective means of saccharifying grain. Merinoff-Kwasnieski read Takamine’s papers to better understand how this could work in a modern whiskey distillery.
“I was really enchanted by the story and how they show all the success and efficiency of koji over [malted] barley,” she says. “Then very abruptly the paper ends with, ‘But it’s not suited to the North American palate and we’re discontinuing trials.’ But what actually happened was their test plant in Chicago burned down and it was likely [done by] the mobsters who controlled the malt trade.”
After making some shochu to learn the process, Merinoff-Kwasnieski made small batches of koji bourbon—not a lot, but enough to eventually release a few hundred bottles. “It’s more to illustrate the different places we’ve gone” than to make the koji bourbon a commercial brand, she says.
Since Matchbook’s grain and fermentation stages focus on building flavor, Merinoff-Kwasnieski opts to preserve as much of it as possible at the point of distillation. She typically fills barrels at 55% ABV, much lower than the industry standard, which allows her to minimize dilution after maturation. And those barrels are made by Kelvin Cooperage from staves that air-dry for at least three years. “We can get this slow and steady breakdown of the lignin, which creates a really nice cascade of esterification,” Merinoff-Kwasnieski says. In other words: the barrels’ complicated treatment, including the low alcohol level at the time of filling, supports more complex flavor development as the whiskey matures.
Even among craft distillers, Matchbook’s volumes are tiny. Merinoff-Kwasnieski made about 25 barrels of whiskey last year, and 50 the year before. She’d like to make more but is constrained by cost—all that organic grain isn’t cheap, nor are her methods—and time, as Matchbook makes a variety of other spirits for both its own brands and on contract for others, specializing in extremely custom recipes for clients that include Michelin-starred restaurants like Eleven Madison Park.
The whiskies that are most available (or will be once they reach full maturity) are Metamodernity, a bourbon made with either soft winter wheat and roasted oats (at 48.5% ABV) or the cask-strength version of Metamodernity, whose mashbill instead uses Danko rye as the flavoring grain. Later this year, Matchbook’s first American single malts will come of age, made with Champion of Vermont and Hannah barley.
Merinoff-Kwasnieski is inarguably doing some of the most truly innovative and interesting work in the American whiskey space, but she says it has been met with pushback from some quarters—bullying over comments about yeast at a conference and unfriendly phone calls from fellow distillers—which has led her to pursue more of a solo path. Going it alone can be an advantage for someone who’s motivated to do things differently, but it also risks being overlooked, something Merinoff-Kwasnieski struggles with, given her pride in and passion for Matchbook’s whiskies.
“Unfortunately when women dare to think differently, especially in a male-dominated industry, [the men] take it like you’re telling them that they’ve been doing it all wrong, and just by doing your own thing that you're cutting them down,” Merinoff-Kwasnieski says. “But you’ll never see any quotes from me talking smack about anyone. Don’t we want more souls in whiskey? More viewpoints, more diversity create a more flavorful and interesting texture to our world.”
Intensely aromatic with notes of milk chocolate, sugared pecan, sweetened coffee, and dried chiles. Big-bodied and equally intense on the palate: semi-sweet chocolate and spice up front turn to leather and oak, with generous tannins. The finish extends the palate’s flavors nicely, ending with unsweetened chocolate and barrel char.
A totally different beast from its lower-proof sibling, thanks to a mashbill that features Danko rye instead of wheat. Sharply herbal and green on the nose, with pine needle, balsam, and a hint of pencil eraser. Surprisingly soft on the palate, featuring cinnamon and black pepper, mint oil, barrel char, and a pleasing balance of dark chocolate and burnt sugar sweetness. Once again, the finish serves to extend the palate’s intensity, with burnt herbs and pine and dark leather flavors.
Delightfully offbeat profile, with tangy aromas of lime pickle and plum skins—highly aromatic, but not floral or sweet. An interplay of tangy fruit—apricot, pickled plum—and spiced oak on the light-bodied palate, with shavings of cinnamon bark and bitter chocolate at the turn. The finish isn’t quite there yet, but time will tell.
An enticing nose with milk chocolate and toasted malt, sprinkled with new oak sawdust. The mouthfeel is pleasingly oily, and flavors tend toward rich, warm spice: tons of cinnamon and pink peppercorn, juxtaposed with bittersweet oak and cacao. Leathery tobacco, prominent oak, and bitter chocolate to finish. It’s interesting and well-made, but the balance of grain and barrel still needs time to work itself out.
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