Liberty Pole partners with Dad's Hat to create a one-of

In some ways, beer and whiskey are silly and serious siblings.

While breweries invent zany, irreverent names for their beers — Purple Monkey, Even More Jesus and Robohop, for example — distilleries typically project an austere, aristocratic atmosphere. In whiskeyland, it’s the old fashioned that’s hip.

But this month, two Pennsylvania distilleries are partying like the craft breweries; they're releasing a collab.

Washington County-based Liberty Pole has partnered with Dad’s Hat Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey, a distillery in Bristol, Bucks County.

Liberty Pole founder Jim Hough had been talking shop with Dad’s Hat founder Herman Mihalich for years. Mihalich grew up over a bar in Monessen, and the two men like to compliment each other as the best whiskey on each other’s side of the Allegheny