Whiskey Trust

Whiskey Trust is a Chicago-based independent blender — not a distiller. Owner Jeff VanDam sources casks from American distilleries (contractually under NDA, which is standard for the model) and blends them into small, numbered batches under his own DSP. What we like: the mash bill of every batch is published up-front, the runs stay small enough that batch-to-batch character actually matters, and Jeff picks and blends every batch himself instead of outsourcing the palate to a lab.

You can find plenty of "sourced" whiskey on the shelf that leans on marketing and hides its provenance. Whiskey Trust is on the other end of that spectrum — an honest, transparent take on the independent-blender model, made locally.

Jeff runs Whiskey Trust out of Chicago under federal permit DSP-IL-20119. Each release is a bench-blend of casks Jeff has hunted down, tasted, and combined to hit a specific profile — then bottled in small runs (a few hundred bottles at a time, not thousands). Sources stay under NDA per his agreements with the originating distilleries, which is the industry-standard tradeoff for an independent blender working with quality juice.

More on the project, current releases, and the producer's own tasting notes at whiskey-trust.com and on Instagram at @trustinwhiskey.

We currently carry the Lake Barrel Batch (a 236-bottle blend) and the Dynamite Batch. Both are the same price on the shelf and rotate as batches are exhausted. Batch notes are on each product card below — click through for the mash bill, the back-of-bottle notes, and current inventory.