Two Chicagoland icons collab as FEW Spirits and The Smashing Pumpkins have released FEW Smashing Pumpkins Bourbon.
The 93-proof bottling is FEW’s signature straight bourbon, aged four years, and cut to bottling strength using Midnight Rose black tea from Madame Zuzu’s Emporium, the boutique tea shop run by The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and his wife, entrepreneur Chloé Mendel Corgan.
FEW’s Evanston, IL distillery is roughly a six-song metro ride south along the shores of Lake Michigan from Highland Park, home to Madame Zuzu’s. It’s from his distillery that FEW founder and master distiller Paul Hletko has developed a track record of partnering with musicians and creating spirits that are representative of his collaborators.
“Whether you’re making music, painting, blending tea, or distilling spirits, you’re making art,” said FEW Founder and Master Distiller Paul Hletko. “As a Chicagoan, I felt a personal responsibility to match the raw, primal energy of the Pumpkins. Songs like ‘I Am One’, the opening track of the band’s first album, Gish, provided a ton of inspiration. Press ‘play’ and you’re immediately struck by these thumping, propulsive drums, joined seconds later by a tight bassline groove before crunching guitars kick in to round out what, for me, is such a signature sound. That’s the driving, yet symphonic quality we wanted to bring to this liquid.”
Award-winning Chicago visual artist Katelan Foisy designed the label for FEW Smashing Pumpkins Bourbon. Foisy has worked previously with both Madame Zuzu’s and the Pumpkins, including stage backdrops for the Shiny and Oh So Bright, Spirits on Fire, and The World is a Vampire tours, as well as designing interior album art for Corgan’s solo album, Ogilala.
For the FEW Smashing Pumpkins Bourbon label art, she drew inspiration from elements of vintage tea tins and labels connecting the bourbon back to Madame Zuzu’s, and merged them with Art Deco and Victorian design. In a nod to her decade-plus relationship with the Corgans, she included on the rear label the lyric “time is never time at all” from “Tonight, Tonight”, which is track four on the 1996 album Melancholie and the Infinite Sadness.
FEW Smashing Pumpkins Bourbon is available now for $50.
