Straight Bourbon Whisky, Distilled and Aged in Washington, DC

This bottle is a testament to small businesses getting things done on the international stage. Distilled and aged in Washington, D.C., this single barrel of four grain bourbon (malted barley, hard red winter wheat, rye, and yellow corn) was destined to become another release of Mt. Pleasant Club Whiskey's historic series celebrating the streets of that DC neighborhood. But fate intervened in the form of an overseas home exchange (www.peoplelikeus.world) where two like-minded entrepreneurs formed a bond through hospitality, trust and friendship to divert the barrel's contents to celebrate the history of Hurlstone Park, NSW. Cheers!

Label Art by Dmitry Kuznichenko

What do you get, when old-world European aestheticism is transplanted to the Aussie backyard? You get a resplendent affirmation of life, dappled with humour.

Born 1962 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Kuznichenko studied six years at the Institute of Arts and Design (then the Academy of Fine Arts), graduating with a Master of Fine Arts in 1986. Since emigrating to Australia in 1992, he has enthusiastically made this country his own. Australian idiosyncrasies are integrated into his subject-matter, while the unique shapes and coloration of the Australian landscape become backdrops to his scenes. Visit Dmirty at https://dmitrykuznichenko.com.

Australia 1895 – Fernhill NSW

Fernhill Station opened on February 1, 1895 when the Bankstown line opened from Sydney to Belmore. In 1910, a new post office was approved for the town, but the Postmaster General’s Department insisted that a new name of the locality had to be chosen (since there were already two other Fernhill’s in Australia - Victoria & Queensland). A local referendum was held, and the suburb was renamed Hurlstone Park on August 19, 1911. (The Department of Railways required the addition of “Park” as they thought Hurlstone was too similar to Hillston and wanted to avoid confusion.)

United States of America 1911 – Mount Pleasant DC

Meanwhile, during the Spring of 1911 in the small suburban community of Mount Pleasant, Washington DC USA, a bottle of “Mt. Pleasant Club Whiskey” was left behind in the crawl space just under the roof of a rowhouse. It stayed there for over 70 years when it was found (label intact). In 2021, it became the inspiration for the revival of the brand where each whiskey product produced is named after streets in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood.

Today

Connecting through the home exchange website “People Like Us,” Hurlstone Park’s James, and Mt. Pleasant’s Troy, with logistical support by our better halves, exchanged houses for respective international travel in August 2023. Troy left some samples of his Mt. Pleasant Club Whiskey for his house swap mate, and James returned the favor leaving a few samples of local Aussie whiskeys. James fell in love with the Mt. Pleasant Club’s Brown Street Bourbon.

Both James and Troy noted the remarkable similarities of the neighborhoods they shared and felt the need to bring them closer. James even got to meet Troy’s partner in Whiskey, John (the friend & neighbor).

Once the vacations were done, James, Troy & John stayed in touch and hatched the plan to have James choose a barrel of bourbon that would be released in Australia. Many samples made the journey Down Under, they were sampled, a cask selected and ABV was picked. Customs, import regulations and licensing were successfully negotiated and what you have in the bottle in your hands is what a collaboration across a century has yielded. Enjoy!