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This story starts about a year ago when we first were talking with the mysterious crafters at Moses Lake Distillery about a potential collaboration bottle. Naturally we liked the idea of an Irish Death Whiskey, and Moses Lake Distillery\u2019s Zach Hughes & Joe Ketterer seemed like the right team to do it justice. So we hooked them up with a few barrels of finished Irish Death, they got to work on the distillery alchemy stuff that turns it into liquor, and then it came time to figure out the label for the bottle.<\/p>\n
Given that I do the graphic design for the brewery and create our beer labels, I raised my hand to offer my services.<\/p>\n
Problem #1.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n We can\u2019t call it Irish Death Whiskey. Kind of like you can\u2019t just call any old sparkling wine \u201cchampagne\u201d unless it comes from the Champagne region of France. Or tequila; if it\u2019s not from Mexico you can\u2019t put the word \u201ctequila\u201d on the bottle. In the eyes of the booze cops, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), putting the word \u201cIrish\u201d anywhere on this bottle of whiskey would be considered false advertising since it\u2019s not an Irish whiskey. So the first hurdle was coming up with a name that doesn\u2019t feature any mention of Ireland.<\/p>\n Fine. I\u2019ve seen Peaky Blinders. I\u2019m not about to piss off the Irish. But given the beer is called Irish Death this made for a unique challenge. So Joe and I went back and forth on some different names. Here are a few of my favorites:<\/p>\n In the end we agreed that \u201cRedacted Death\u201d was the best option. I was confident that I could make the label look very clearly like Irish Death with the skull, and then just put a big red \u201cREDACTED\u201d over the word \u201cIrish.\u201d Cool, problem solved.<\/p>\n But the thing is, we made this decision sometime in March of 2025 \u2013 about 9 months prior to when the word \u201credacted\u201d started showing up a lot more in the news. You may recall that in December of 2025 there were a bunch of files \u201creleased\u201d to the public, which were heavily redacted.<\/p>\n So just to be clear, the name \u201credacted death\u201d is absolutely not a reference to Epstein. Just an unfortunate coincidence. K, moving on to:<\/p>\n Problem #2<\/strong><\/p>\n We submitted version one of the label to the TTB for approval and they came back with some requested revisions. Easy enough, make the words \u201cGOVERNMENT WARNING\u201d bigger, change the wording in a couple places, then we resubmit the label for approval. But the TTB shot back again when they learned about the process Moses Lake Distillery went through in the creation of this non-Irish beverage.<\/p>\n Traditional whiskeys are made from 3 ingredients: water, cereal grains, and yeast. But to get the best flavor out of this particular whiskey, Moses Lake Distillery also utilized hops, which is not one of those three whiskey ingredients, and which made the TTB throw a fit and ask us to not call it a whiskey at all.<\/p>\n Son of a bitch. By now I\u2019ve made three or four versions of the label so opening Adobe Illustrator back up wasn\u2019t the end of the world, but I was feeling frustration towards the fun-police and I was especially pissy because this WHOLE TIME we could have called it Irish Death something<\/em> after all because according to the TTB it\u2019s not even a whiskey. Son of a bitch.<\/p>\n In the end, the TTB requested I put the words \u201cSPIRITS DISTILLED FROM GRAIN WITH HOPS\u201d under the \u201cREDACTED DEATH\u201d name. Really rolls off the tongue.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s why our collaboration with Moses Lake Distillery is technically called \u201cRedacted Death Spirits Distilled from Grain with Hops.\u201d I don\u2019t know if \u201cIrish Death Spirits Distilled from Grain with Hops\u201d is much better, but let\u2019s be real everyone is already calling it \u201cIrish Death Whiskey.\u201d I\u2019m just not allowed to put those words on the bottle.<\/p>\n Joe brought Redacted Death to Eastern Washington Brewfest 2026 for its debut pouring and it was loved by all. I have a bottle sitting on my desk staring at me now, triggering my TTB PTSD, but it was all worth it in the end when Joe gifted me a shirt for the work I did on the label. It\u2019s my new favorite shirt and has an image of the Redacted Death label with text above it that reads \u201cTTB renamed my dog.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking for a bottle to pick up, these details will be shared soon on our social media pages. We started this collaboration as a small limited release batch, but because the initial feedback from tastings has been so overwhelming, Moses Lake Distillery and IHB are coming back together to discuss a larger batch and wider distribution. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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