LTO: Another Word for "Going, Going, Gone!"

The first time I heard the phrase, “It’s an LTO,” from a distiller my ears perked up with interest. Not because I knew what the acronym stood for, but because of how he said it.

No doubt, whatever an LTO was, it made this guy’s eyes light with excitement and urgency.

I asked, “And LTO stands for …?”

“An abbreviation for Hurry thee off to your liquor store!” he answered with glee.

And soon I knew why. Because a “limited-time offering” is exactly that.

Gone in a flash.

Now, because you trust us with your email, we’re trusting you’ll thank us for giving you heads up 24 hours before everyone else—rushing you the news that our latest LTO is out, available, and going fast.

Some of you may already be familiar with our Holland’s Ghost family of expressions, as the series bottle offerings of the original Holland’s Ghost is in its fifth round. But for those of you fresh to our front door—a quick primer on the story.

Whenever we wax lyrical on the pioneering days of Reservoir, we’re apt to speak of Jay and Dave—Reservoir’s founding fathers—and how the distillery came to be after meeting a wizened distiller, fatigued with life, but determined to pass on his skills before passing on himself.

As is traditional with many of the world’s most sacred and well-established distilleries, the foundation story is … foundationless. As fictional as that ghostly old distiller, Mr. Holland himself, but entertaining nonetheless.

In truth, Holland’s Ghost came about because of Mac McCormack, proprietor of Richmond Virginia’s Big Whisky Grill.

Mac called the distillery with a challenge. Said he’d just finished the last of a dusty bottle of bourbon from the 1960’s and wished he could reverse time. Could we help?

And as talented as Dave and Jay are with the alchemy in their copper still, the best they could do was reverse engineer.

They told Mac that because the distillery’s principal bottles were single grain distillations of wheat, corn, and rye, they could essentially reconfigure any recipe and likely find success.

All good, apart from the fact that the particular bottle Mac wished to recreate held a note of barley in it. Now what, fellas?‍

As with any good collaboration, many hands make light work, and fortuitously, Ardent Craft Brewery, literally down the road, had an empty stout beer cask that just might add that magical barley note plus a few hands that would happily haul it over.

Holland’s Ghost was born. A whiskey made from 70% corn, 15% wheat, and 15% rye, aged for three years in a quarter cask barrel of new American white oak, then enfolded within the staves of Ardent’s 53 gallon stout cask for another long nap of one and one half years.

Perfection.

But perfection will be gone in a flash.

We’ve got only 269 bottles available. If you’re in Virginia, you’ll have to act fast if you want one of the 114 bottles allocated to the state. Come to the tasting room, or special order from your local ABC store. The rest are scattered about to other states and are sailing toward the UK.

The same goes for one other beautiful expression we have available for the “get it while you can” sale: Blade Rummer.‍

A well-loved part of the Holland’s Ghost family, Blade Rummer has that exact recipe, but gets a long hug from 25 yr old Jamaican rum barrels first holding stout.

And although we have 284 bottles of Blade Rummer available—it’s the same Virginia allocated proportions as the Ghost.

Lastly, keep your eye out for postings on our upcoming release of another LTO—The Milkman—likely ready toward the holidays.

So Hurry thee off! As these LTOs are Going, going, gone!