In the rolling hills of Virginia, in the small town of Lovingston, about 45 minutes from Charlottesville, the Virginia Distillery is rising out of what in Scotland would be called a Glen or valley. Tucked into the surrounding woods and gently mounded topography is what will soon be a sophisticated operation producing single malt whisky in the style of Scotch.

As in Scotland the spirit will be made from malted barley, water and yeast and nothing else. The majority of distilleries in the US produce bourbon and they have a mash bill that includes corn at 51% (minimum) along with barley, malted barley, wheat and rye in various combinations. Most bourbon is also made in a continuous process using a column still rather than in batches using pot stills.

The history of the stills that are being assembled in the Virginia Distillery is unusual for stills in the US too. These were made in Scotland by Northern Fabricators of Elgin and were used for several years in Turkey in a government run distillery to make a whisky called Ankara Malt Wiski (below).

(Uh, how much do you want Mr. FedEx man?)

At this point the stills still need to be raised into place so they are protruding through the production room floor and and the swan necks and condensers attached. After that all the plumbing and electricity piping and conduits will be installed.

The folks in charge of operations as the enterprise comes together are, John McCray, Executive Vice President, Production; Pat Jones-McCray E.V.P. Marketing and PR and Dan Fitzhenry, Director, Sales and Marketing. They have been shepherding the project for several years and hope to have the distillery up and running in Spring of 2012. They are also being helped by consultant Harry Cockburn, who was instrumental in acquiring the stills and is a former manager at Bowmore Distillery on Islay. Harry has set-up distilleries all over the world and is a huge resource in starting up such a complicated endeavor. (For further photos and background on this start-up see original blog post from October 2010, Distilling “Scotch” in Virginia. There is also a video of the early state of the distillery on the Distillery Videos page, just below the Maker’s 46 video.)

Water for production will be drawn from springs and wells on the property and malted barley will be sourced in the US to be ground into grist, on premise, before being sent to the mash tun for the start of the distilling process. There warm water is added in two steps to extract the sugars from the barley. The spent barley is drained off and the liquid remaining, wort, is sent to the fermenters where yeast is added.

After a period in the fermenters, what is now called whisky wash (about 12-15% alcohol at this stage) is sent to the Wash Still and distilled in its first pass through the stills.

The area near the distillery is also wine country and there is talk about doing some wine cask finishing down the road.

Originally the team putting together the distillery thought that production would begin this past Spring, but as with all financial endeavors the reality of market forces has kept things going at a slower pace than initially anticipated.

When the distillery is operational it will not be a computerized process but hands-on using authentic pot still distilling at its finest. Bottling will be done off site at the onset of operations, but space is available for an integrated bottling plant in the future. The investors project an eventual output of 100,000 cases per year. That production along with the staffing of the distillery itself will be a welcome boost to local employment and US barley production.

We can all look forward to the first drops of spirit coming off the stills and the time when, aged to perfection, it passes our lips and puts a smile upon our faces. Let the whisky flow!

Postscript: An alert reader of the BUMS facebook page, Bozkurt Bozzy Karasu who used to live in Turkey  posted some interesting information on the history behind the stills and the Ankara whisky that they produced. Worth a read.