Berkshire Mountain Distillers Smoke and Peat Bourbon Whiskey

About Berkshire Mountain Distillers

When Chris Weld, founder and master distiller at Berkshire Mountain Distillers, was thirteen years old, he set about building a still for his eighth-grade science project. "My dad was a Scotch drinker, so I'd gotten it in my head that I wanted to build my very own still," he says. When he learned that distilling spirits without a license was a federal offense, "well, that kind of put the kibosh on the whole plan."

In 2007, he decided to try again. After purchasing some property in the shadow of the Berkshire Mountains in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Weld opened the doors to Berkshire Mountain Distillers. At the time, the land was little more than a dilapidated apple farm, but it did sport a legendary hot spring that was once deemed to produce the finest water in the world. Back in the 19th century, the water from the spring was thought to be so curative and therapeutic that people would travel across the country in order to drink from it. While Weld doesn't claim that the spring water — which is rich in minerals and naturally granite-filtered — has any mystical healing powers, he does swear by it.