The New York Times – American Whiskeys Find Their Middlemen

Some couples bond over music, movies or travel. For Nora Ganley-Roper and Adam Polonski, it was Scotch whisky.

When they started dating six years ago, Ms. Ganley-Roper, a manager at Astor Wines & Spirits in Manhattan, and Mr. Polonski, a senior writer at Whisky Advocate magazine, found they were both big admirers of Scotland’s independent bottlers, which purchase barrels of whisky from single-malt distilleries and sell them under their own label, sometimes after blending them together.

“I was writing a story about Scottish independent bottlers and asking myself, why isn’t anyone doing this in the U.S.?” Mr. Polonski said.

In 2018, they quit their jobs, put their things in storage and went on a yearlong road trip, touring as many distilleries as they could; along the way they got engaged. They eventually settled near Burlington, Vt., where they founded Lost Lantern, their attempt to bring the independent-bottler tradition to the United States.

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