I'm at a natural stopping point for this blog. I've exhausted the list of single malt scotches I've tasted so far since getting interested in this whole thing, 23 so far. I don't know how well I was able to stay on point working Richmond or Virginia into the conversation. Sometimes it was a rather large stretch, but that was part of my reason for doing this. I did think of a way to 'tie it all together' though...
Nestled amongst the Blue Ridge Mountains, less than a 2 hour drive from Richmond, sits the Virginia Distillery Company. Nelson County has been experiencing an alcohol-tourism boom these last few years, and once the distillery opens their doors to visitors later this year (*update - it's open), its market profile is sure to skyrocket. In the meantime, there's malt whisky production afoot behind their closed doors, and its wares are the closest thing we may ever get to bona fide scotch made here in Virginia.
It's not scotch of course, it's 'Highland malt whisky' on account of a technicality (although it is sold on the proper scotch shelf at Virginia ABC stores). The end game for the nascent Virginia Distillery Company is to grow and malt its own barley, then distill and age its own spirits into a single malt whisky that Virginians can call their own. To my knowledge, it's all still a work-in-progress, but even if they already have the capacity to distill, the unfinished product has years of lag time aging in oak casks before the whisky will be properly matured. In constructing their distillery, the VDC is making every effort to purchase or replicate Scottish-style equipment to produce the most authentic single malt whisky in the Scottish tradition (read more).
In the meantime, the distillery has been importing malt spirit that has been distilled and cask aged by an unnamed distillery in Scotland. The product arrives in Virginia, and is then finished using local port wine casks (a combination of King Family Vineyards, DelFosse Vineyards, et al), a nod to the malt's adopted home, and the only significant tweak of Scottish tradition.
The involvement of the outside distillery disqualifies the VHMW as a 'single malt', at least until it starts using its own goods. There is no age statement, nor (most significantly) any indication regarding which scotch distillery they use, other than a casual mention of the Scottish Highlands. The biggest clue may come from the online bio of their new master distiller, Andrew Shand.
Shand is an incredible get for an upstart malt whisky distillery 3,000 miles away from Scotland. He has history with Longmorn, Benriach, Glenlivet, and Chivas Regal; managerial experience with Ben Nevis and its Japanese counterpart, Nikka Whisky; and most recently was both the Master Distiller and Master Blender for the Speyside Distillery until transplanting himself to Charlottesville last year. This ain't his first rodeo.
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Sweetness shows up on the palate as well - toffee, honey, blackstrap molasses, raspberries. Nice rounded malt flavor, creamy caramel texture, and a solid body. The long, warming finish was a bit sticky on the teeth, something bourbon always does to me, but an elegant punch of peppery spice hits as the last drop goes down the gullet.
Really good stuff, you could easily pass this off as a quality Highland scotch. My biggest trepidation for this malt is once they transition to putting out their own goods. Right now, whoever they're using in Scotland is doing the lion's share of the work, and the VDC is adding its Virginia flair right at the end. Once they are accountable for farming and malting their own barley, using a different water source, navigating the mysterious gauntlet of distillation, and aging in different casks in a different microclimate, the end result will be very... well, different. That's not to say future batches of Virginia Highland Malt Whisky won't measure up to what they have now, but I would expect some growing pains, and a big shift in flavor profile once they finally press the Big Green Button.
Overall Grade: 86/100, solid B
Hang on, there's more...
A scotch-style malt whisky made in the U.S. is rare enough, let alone so close to bourbon country, yet Virginia has two solid representatives all by itself. This next one has already achieved what the first one aspires to - growing, mashing, distilling, and aging malt whisky, all right here in the commonwealth.
The Copper Fox Distillery is situated in Sperryville, near a northern entrance to Shenandoah National Park, and easy to get to from quasi-Northern Virginia places like Warrenton or Culpeper. According to their website, a second location is in the works down in Williamsburg, a far easier trek for us RVA folks (*update - it's now open).
Copper Fox is taking a different tack with its interpretation of malt whisky, 'emphasizing a combination of innovation and tradition', to paraphrase their homepage. Just like the Bowmore Distillery on Islay where founder Rick Wasmund completed a three year internship before bringing his knowledge back across the pond, Copper Fox does have its own malting floor (the only one in a North American distillery and a rarity even in Scotland), and use it to smoke dry their malt not with peat, but rather apple and cherry wood smoke. Okay, a little touch of Virginia already, what else you got?
The next few steps are by the book: malt to mash, mash to wort, distilled in oddly shaped copper stills, and the new make aged in oak casks. The twist comes with that last step. Toasted chips of apple and cherry wood are placed down inside the oak casks with the new make. This not only adds a new flavor dimension to the malt, but also adds to the surface area of wood interacting with the spirit, effectively speeding up the maturation process. Aging is also sped up significantly by the warmer temperatures and (more importantly) wider temperature swings during maturation storage.
Also unlike Scottish reliance on previously used bourbon and sherry casks, in compliance with American guidelines, our distillates must be initially aged in unused oak casks. Freshly charred oak is hard for a delicate malt to stand up to on its own, and so every little bit of flavor going in helps. Apparently, this is not as big a problem for other American whiskeys made from corn or rye, perhaps why barley has never been as big a player in U.S. whisk(e)y production.
Unlike the other Virginia malt, you will not mistake this one for scotch. At the ABC stores, they even put on the bourbon shelf, even though it fits all the criteria for 'single malt whisky'. No corn, no rye, no other grains; just good old barley, yeast, and water. The conspicuous lack of the letter 'e' should reflect all that, but oh well, bourbon aisle it is.
The smoke upon opening a Wasmund's is instantly reminiscent of a crackling campfire. The fruitwood notes are not lost on me; makes me wanna strap the kayak to the car, pack up the kids, and head for Skyline Drive. The fruity aromas of apples and cherries are there too, although my palate might be playing tricks on me at this point. The most striking aspect of the nose is its fragrant intensity. I found myself wondering how far away I could stand from the bottle and still smell it. You should probably plan on taking whatever you're wearing to the dry cleaners. Fascinating stuff.
Wasmund's nose pretty much approximates its flavors on the palate, maybe some vanilla and smoked almond notes to boot. The hardwood smoke cuts the sweetness from the full bodied malt and the fruit. There's no chill-filtering to dumb down the flavors, and its 48% ABV doesn't hurt either. It gets a little bitter in the tannic finish, but otherwise warm and coating. That smoke though, that'll be with you all day long.
Overall Grade: 84/100, B
OTHER VIRGINIA WHISKIES:
Reservoir Distillery (RVA)
Belle Isle Craft Spirits (RVA)
A. Smith Bowman (Fredericksburg)
Belmont Farms (Culpeper)
Catoctin Creek (Purcellville)
Tack Room Spirits (Purcellville)
Ragged Branch Distillery (Charlottesville)
Spirit Lab Distilling (Charlottesville)
Virginia Sweetwater Distillery (Marion)
Silverback Distillery (Afton)
Davis Valley Distillery (Rural Retreat)
Dry Fork Fruit (Meadows of Dan)
Boar Creek (Hillsville)
Ironclad (Newport News)
KO Distilling (Manassas)
MurLarkey Distilled Spirits (Gainesville)
River Hill (Luray)
Virgilina Distilling Co. (Virgilina)
Williamsburg Distillery (Williamsburg)
Dome & Spear Distillery (Evington)
Stone Mountain (Lebanon)
Springfield Distillery (Halifax)
8 Shires Colonial Distillery (Williamsburg)
And believe it or not...
George Washington's Distillery & Gristmill (Mount Vernon)
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