Gary Hinegardner knew he could create stunning whiskey from his heirloom red corn. He earned a national award with it, after all. Hinegardner had also crafted a beautiful spirit from a native blue corn.

But a blend of the two just didn’t sit well with him.

“It doesn’t have a ring,” Hinegardner said. “Red and blue?”

So the owner and distiller of Wood Hat Spirits in New Florence introduced a variety known as Morgan County White. And while he admits the third corn has very little influence on flavor, it does allow for a name that resounds.

Wood Hat’s All American Red, White and Blue Whiskey is a firecracker. Smooth and steady with just a trace of sizzle at the start, it bursts with spice and intricate flavors mid palate before settling in for a nice, familiar finish.

“It’s an all around great whiskey, an everyday whiskey,” Hinegardner observed.

Knowing what’s in store when you take the first sip, Red, White and Blue is surprisingly coy on the nose. It offers impressions of oak and toasted caramel, the nip of scorched wood and soft cola. Yet there’s a flirtatious intensity that winks and then slips away.

It returns on the palate, only this time with every intention of stealing you away. Ripples of pepper pop from swirls of caramelized spice. It clings to the palate -- embers of spiciness that bring a liveliness to the more soothing notions of oak and sweet cola.

For a moment there is a barrel-aged carnival. Then the spirit ebbs to a smooth, rich finish.

Bloody Butcher, a corn variety dating back to 1845 or further in the United States, provides the kick. Hopi blue, a sturdy corn grown by tribes in the desert mesas, sets the easy sipping tone. Morgan County White makes up no more than 10 to 15 percent of the blend.

Hinebloom ages each whiskey in Missouri white oak barrels for up to three years before blending -- a laborious process of mixing, tasting and adjusting. Too smooth, he adds Bloody Butcher. Too hot and spicy, pour in more blue.

“We move it back and forth until we get it right,” he explained.

So there’s no real recipe. Just heirloom corn grown out back and local oak for the barrels that cure in Missouri’s cycle of snow, rain and sweltering summer heat.

It’s reminiscent of the first American whiskeys, which were produced by farmers spilling into what were once native lands. In fact, the story of whiskey in the New World can’t be told without mentioning America’s founding fathers -- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton -- and the spirit of ‘76.

For most American colonists, rum was the preferred spirit. And they drank quite a lot of it. However, distilling rum required sugar from the cane fields of the Caribbean, tended by slaves (rum fueled the triangle trade that enslaved tens of thousands of Africans).

During the American Revolution, the supply of sugarcane dwindled. But there was plenty of corn. And a growing number of Scots-Irish immigrants more accustomed to whiskey anyway.

Whiskey quickly became readily available and popular -- so much so that Hamilton, the new nation’s treasury secretary, recommended a tax on whiskey to help pay off debt from the war.

Washington was hesitant, but brought the whiskey tax measure to Congress, where it was adopted.

This didn’t sit well with farmers. Not only did the tax burden weigh more heavily on the small producers than the rich -- a familiar Americanism -- but it also punished those carving out land on the expanding frontier.

Farmers forced to haul grain on long treks over the mountains would watch helplessly as part of the load rotted. Whiskey survived the journey and brought in more cash.

A protest swelled and in the western reaches of Pennsylvania turned violent. In 1794 Washington called out a federal militia of some 13,000 troops to put down the rebellion.

The soldiers arrested 150 men. Two were convicted of treason, but later pardoned by Washington. The establishment of stronger central government authority was of greater importance to the president than the convictions.

In 1802 President Jefferson put an end to the whiskey tax. By then the spirit was already part of the American story.

Hinegardner was right. Red, White and Blue has a ring to it.