Bob Dylan's New Avatar : Heaven's Door

Bob Dylan is one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the 20th century, known for songs that chronicle social and political issues. As a folk singer, he ruled American Music Scene in sixties.

He is in news once again. He is going to launch Bourbon Whiskey level of his own ‘Heaven’s Door’ next month.

He was born as Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota to parents Abram and Beatrice Zimmerman. He and his younger brother David were raised in the community of Hibbing, where he graduated from Hibbing High School in 1959. . While attending college, he began performing folk and country songs, taking the name "Bob Dylan." In 1961 Dylan signed his first recording contract in the age of twenty, and he emerged as one of the most original and influential voices in American popular music. 

Driven by the influences of early rock stars like Elvis Prisley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard (whom he used to imitate on the piano at high school dances), the young Dylan formed his own bands, including the Golden Chords, as well as a group he fronted under the pseudonym Elston Gunn. While attending the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, he began performing folk and country songs at local cafés, taking the name "Bob Dillon." (Despite a popular myth to the contrary, the pseudonym was not inspired by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas—who he later professed to dislike—but by the main character from the popular Western television series Gunsmoke.) 

In 1960, Bob dropped out of college and moved to New York, where his idol, the legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie, was hospitalized with a rare hereditary disease of the nervous system. He visited with Guthrie regularly in his hospital room; became a regular in the folk clubs and coffeehouses of Greenwich Village; met a host of other musicians; and began writing songs at an astonishing pace, including "Song to Woody," a tribute to his ailing hero. 

In the fall of 1961, after one of his performances received a rave review in The New York Times, he signed a recording contract with Columbia Records, at which point he legally changed his surname to Dylan. Released early in 1962, Bob Dylan contained only two original songs, but showcased Dylan's gravel-voiced singing style in a number of traditional folk songs and covers of blues songs. 

Dylan has continued to scale new heights in his career, toured extensively and releasing  studio albums, including 'Together Through Life' (2009), 'Tempest' (2012), 'Shadows In the Night' (2015) and 'Fallen Angels' (2016). The legendary singer-songwriter has received Grammy, Academy and Golden Globe awards, as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was probably the first lyric writer to receive a Nobel Prize for Literature. 

Dylan and whiskey have gone hand in hand ever since he sung about the distilling process in 1963’s outtake “Moonshiner,” so it’s not too big of a surprise that the Nobel Prize winner will soon have his very own brand of whiskey hitting shelves next month. Heaven’s Door will introduce three small-batch whiskeys—a straight rye, a straight bourbon, and a “double-barreled” whiskey—in May, each vetted and approved by the singer himself.

The project started back in 2015, when accomplished whiskey distiller and huge Dylan fan Marc Bushala noticed the phrase “bootleg whiskey” had been submitted for a trademark application under Bob Dylan’s name. Bushala and Dylan met, and decided to form a distillery together. “Dylan has these qualities that actually work well for a whiskey,” Bushala revealed to press. “He has great authenticity. He is a quintessential American. He does things the way he wants to do them. I think these are good attributes for a super-premium whiskey as well.”

Bob Dylan’s latest venture is a portrait of an old dude living his very best life. His new project? A branded whiskey line, of course. Dylan is the latest celebrity to cash in on the craft liquor boom, and has partnered with bourbon maker Marc Bushala to create Heaven's Door, a collection of small-batch whiskeys.

Unlike most branded stars, Dylan wasn’t content to sign over his name, pose for photos, and call it a day. Instead, he actively involved himself in creating the line of three whiskeys, basing meetings out of his metal shop and offering cryptic suggestions and side-long glances by way of critique.

Upon sampling one version of their new whiskey, Dylan told Bushala and co-collaborator Ryan Perry that the drink "should feel like being in a wood structure." With that helpful bit of constructive criticism, Bushala and Perry went to work to make the liquor smell more barn-like, to Dylan’s approval.