Two tons of two-row barley malt in TexMalt s new smoker.
Photograph by Daniel Vaughn
JB Flowers climbs a ladder looking for smoke, then peers over the edge of a shiny smoker behind TexMalt in Fort Worth. The smoker’s reinforced aluminum walls reach seven feet high atop a foundation of freshly laid concrete blocks. A car length away, a small steel firebox sits tethered to the smoker by circular ductwork. The vessel is big enough to cook a whole steer, but it is full of grain. Flowers, the head distiller at Acre Distilling, just across Interstate 30 in downtown Fort Worth, is here to monitor the progress of the smoked malt he plans to use for another batch of his buttery-smooth Parker County Smoked Single Malt Whisky.