High Wire’s Scott Blackwell has seemingly done it all in food and hospitality.
The serial entrepreneur’s career began as a college student in 1983 when his first business evolved into an ice cream distributorship with Ben & Jerry’s. Blackwell opened his first restaurant a few years later where he establish Immaculate Baking Company, a baked goods company that sold distributed organic cookies, brownies, and bars. After catching a show about the exploding Seattle coffee scene in the early 90’s—back when Starbucks had less than 100 stores—Blackwell flew to Washington to experience this craft movement firsthand. Excited by Seattle’s energy and the quality of the brew, he began roasting coffee beans at his restaurant in South Carolina. In 2012, Blackwell sold his Immaculate Baking Company to General Mills.
By this time, the entrepreneur and his wife Ann were searching for the next venture. They’d been home brewing since 2010 and seriously considered building a brewery, but the industry had long since matured and it didn’t feel right. The independent distilling scene, conversely, was just gaining traction. Sensing opportunity, Marshall and Blackwell flew back to the Pacific Northwest and toured Portland’s string of micro-distilleries. The electricity around the scene reminded him of his experience in Seattle two decades earlier. During the trip the husband and wife team connected with local spirits entrepreneur Christian Krogstad, creator of Aviation gin and Westward American Single Malt. Krogstad was a brewer himself before pursuing spirits, and explained that since distilling whiskey begins by making beer, he was already on his way. Blackwell and his wife were hooked.
In 2013, construction began on High Wire Distillery, an industrial style 6,000 square foot warehouse located on Upper King Street, in touristy downtown Charleston. While planning their company, Ann and Scott decided that High Wire was going to be an agriculturally focused distillery and vowed only to make whiskey that tastes nothing like the hundreds of seemingly interchangeable commercial bourbons and ryes on the market. “Don’t do what Kentucky does” became Blackwell and Marshall’s mantra. Their first whiskey, High Wire Revival, was made of sorghum, a cereal grain commonly used in gluten-free baking. When the first drops came off the still in August 2013, They knew they had something delicious, and totally different. Next, the partners turned their attention to bourbon and rye, determined to find their own flavors of the familiar whiskey styles.
In the search, Ann and Scott reached out to their friend Glenn Roberts to help source heirloom grains. Roberts is President of Anson Mills, a local purveyor and a walking encyclopedia of organic grains. When they met, Roberts laid out about 100 strains of corn seed and meticulously explained the flavor profile and starch content for each. Blackwell settled on James Island ‘Jimmy’ Red, an old-school hooch-corn with a long history in South Carolina’s moonshine trade. But when Blackwell tried to order 800 pounds for a small batch, Roberts realized there would be a supply problem. Anson Mills’ customers were bakers and chefs who used a fraction of a distiller’s volume. This is why most big box distillers rely on the very plentiful yellowing #2 dent, a commodity corn grown for livestock, corn syrup, and ethanol. If Blackwell and Marshall wanted Jimmy Red to make bourbon, they would need somebody to grow it.
Ann and Scott were over-budget on the distillery and knew that contracting a farm to grow a rare and pricy corn was risky. But they trusted their friend and signed a contract with nearby Clemson University Coastal Research facility. Clemson agreed to grow a little over 2 acres organically in 2014. The first batch of what became New Southern Revival Straight Bourbon Whiskey, made with 100% Jimmy Red corn, was distilled and barreled in fall 2014.
“Tasting this white dog was a religious experience,” Blackwell remembers. “It had a banana taffy nose and earthy, honey flavors with an unexpected spice note you’d expect from rye or wheat. We knew immediately we had something special.”
There are 59 unique corn varieties globally, and 38 can be traced back to Oaxaca, Mexico. In 2019, Blackwell and Roberts flew to the mother ship and visited The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CYMMYT), a seed bank specializing in ancient grains. They came home with Rojo Tuxpeno seeds, a corn loaded in beta carotene and anthocyanins, giving the grain its red, purple, and black colors. But it was the heavy presence of Cinnamic acid, the chemical that gives cinnamon its spice, that was the clincher. Blackwell returned to Clemson who planted in May 2020 and harvested in December. Ann and Scott laid down the first barrels in January 2021, but you’ll need to wait a few years to try it. Today, New Southern Revival has settled in as Highwire’s signature bourbon, with which Blackwell is developing a smoked expression, special wood finishes like Oloroso sherry, and their first bottled-in-Bond Bourbon is almost mature.
High Wire’s Scott Blackwell has seemingly done it all in food and hospitality. The serial entrepreneur’s career began as a college student in 1983 when his first business evolved into an ice cream distributorship with Ben & Jerry’s. Blackwell opened his first restaurant a few years later where he establish Immaculate Baking Company, a baked goods company that sold distributed organic cookies, brownies, and bars. After catching a show about the exploding Seattle coffee scene in the early 90’s—back when Starbucks had less than 100 stores—Blackwell flew to Washington to experience this craft movement firsthand. Excited by Seattle’s energy and the quality of the brew, he began roasting coffee beans at his restaurant in South Carolina. In 2012, Blackwell sold his Immaculate Baking Company to General Mills.
By this time, the entrepreneur and his wife Ann were searching for the next venture. They’d been home brewing since 2010 and seriously considered building a brewery, but the industry had long since matured and it didn’t feel right. The independent distilling scene, conversely, was just gaining traction. Sensing opportunity, Marshall and Blackwell flew back to the Pacific Northwest and toured Portland’s string of micro-distilleries. The electricity around the scene reminded him of his experience in Seattle two decades earlier. During the trip the husband and wife team connected with local spirits entrepreneur Christian Krogstad, creator of Aviation gin and Westward American Single Malt. Krogstad was a brewer himself before pursuing spirits, and explained that since distilling whiskey begins by making beer, he was already on his way. Blackwell and his wife were hooked.
In 2013, construction began on High Wire Distillery, an industrial style 6,000 square foot warehouse located on Upper King Street, in touristy downtown Charleston. While planning their company, Ann and Scott decided that High Wire was going to be an agriculturally focused distillery and vowed only to make whiskey that tastes nothing like the hundreds of seemingly interchangeable commercial bourbons and ryes on the market. “Don’t do what Kentucky does” became Blackwell and Marshall’s mantra. Their first whiskey, High Wire Revival, was made of sorghum, a cereal grain commonly used in gluten-free baking. When the first drops came off the still in August 2013, They knew they had something delicious, and totally different. Next, the partners turned their attention to bourbon and rye, determined to find their own flavors of the familiar whiskey styles.
In the search, Ann and Scott reached out to their friend Glenn Roberts to help source heirloom grains. Roberts is President of Anson Mills, a local purveyor and a walking encyclopedia of organic grains. When they met, Roberts laid out about 100 strains of corn seed and meticulously explained the flavor profile and starch content for each. Blackwell settled on James Island ‘Jimmy’ Red, an old-school hooch-corn with a long history in South Carolina’s moonshine trade. But when Blackwell tried to order 800 pounds for a small batch, Roberts realized there would be a supply problem. Anson Mills’ customers were bakers and chefs who used a fraction of a distiller’s volume. This is why most big box distillers rely on the very plentiful yellowing #2 dent, a commodity corn grown for livestock, corn syrup, and ethanol. If Blackwell and Marshall wanted Jimmy Red to make bourbon, they would need somebody to grow it.
Ann and Scott were over-budget on the distillery and knew that contracting a farm to grow a rare and pricy corn was risky. But they trusted their friend and signed a contract with nearby Clemson University Coastal Research facility. Clemson agreed to grow a little over 2 acres organically in 2014. The first batch of what became New Southern Revival Straight Bourbon Whiskey, made with 100% Jimmy Red corn, was distilled and barreled in fall 2014.
“Tasting this white dog was a religious experience,” Blackwell remembers. “It had a banana taffy nose and earthy, honey flavors with an unexpected spice note you’d expect from rye or wheat. We knew immediately we had something special.”
There are 59 unique corn varieties globally, and 38 can be traced back to Oaxaca, Mexico. In 2019, Blackwell and Roberts flew to the mother ship and visited The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CYMMYT), a seed bank specializing in ancient grains. They came home with Rojo Tuxpeno seeds, a corn loaded in beta carotene and anthocyanins, giving the grain its red, purple, and black colors. But it was the heavy presence of Cinnamic acid, the chemical that gives cinnamon its spice, that was the clincher. Blackwell returned to Clemson who planted in May 2020 and harvested in December. Ann and Scott laid down the first barrels in January 2021, but you’ll need to wait a few years to try it. Today, New Southern Revival has settled in as Highwire’s signature bourbon, with which Blackwell is developing a smoked expression, special wood finishes like Oloroso sherry, and their first bottled-in-Bond Bourbon is almost mature.
“Tasting this white dog was a religious experience,” Blackwell remembers. “It had a banana taffy nose and earthy, honey flavors with an unexpected spice note you’d expect from rye or wheat. We knew immediately we had something special.”
— Scott Blackwell, co-founder High Wire Distilling
John McCarthy is a spirit, travel, and lifestyle journalist, managing editor, and author of The Modern Gentleman and Whiskey Rebels, releasing June 1st 2021.
