There’s a new US whisky on the block – and it’s not bourbon

But, more than just sharing parallels to the formation of the modern Australian whisky industry, Virginia Distillery Co's story has added a few new layers jumping over the bourbon hurdle.

I caught up with Jerry Heddy, COO and President of the distillery, during his recent trip down under to officially launch the brand. 

When asked to sum up the distillery’s approach, Heddy told Whisky Magazine Australia: “From the very beginning, what we do has been set up for a single malt drinker to enjoy – and it shows because a lot of those products that were ultimately using bourbon equipment to make single malt just don't cut it … Everything that we do is traditional in the sense that we're starting with methods that are a globally recognised style of single malt. But then from there, it's how can we leverage maturation and alter the cask profile to give something that's interesting, unique and innovative."

Given the Scotch whisky ‘industry legend’ status of Dr. Jim Swan and Harry Cockburn, two of the key figures who shaped the distillery’s formation, along with the business leadership of Irish-born whisky lover, the late Dr George G. Moore, it’s little surprise that it has more than achieved this goal. 

VDC’s formative years

Jerry Heddy, who joined Virginia Distillery fairly early on, reflects on its founding story fondly. 

“He was very passionate about single malt, specifically single malt from Scotland,” he said. “When he looked around the US, he was like, ‘No one's really doing this at the quality level that they should. And that's crazy, because it's a big country, they drink a bunch of it here’. So he made the investment, started to build it, and got the best people together.”  

Dr Moore sadly died of a heart attack in 2013 and was succeeded by his son Gareth and wife Angela, but not after contributing to the formation of the American Single Malt Whisky category. 

Despite launching more than five years after the first American single malt specialist, Virginia Distillery played a crucial role in not on helping to establish and formalise the category.

“The category was just formalized – we were a huge part of that – so it was really us and Westland that were pushing that forward,” says Jerry. “We basically adopted a globally accepted single malt definition that became law, finally – it took our unbelievably slow government 10 years to do that.”

This law permitted the use of column stills to make single malt to make it easier for bourbon makers. Despite being cheaper, there is a reason this isn’t done in Scotland.

Jerry explains: "Everything we do is very much quality-driven at, at the sake of efficiency. A pot still is the worst way to distill something. It's inefficient, so inherently, from the physics of it/literally the atoms that you're moving, you're making a quality choice by having a pot still. That's a quality choice that you're surely losing money on."

The whiskies

Virginia Distillery Co is split into the self-titled VDC and the more-premium Courage & Conviction.

All four VDC whiskies are aged in Kentucky bourbon barrels and then finished in unique casks and bottled at 46.5% ABV. Blue Ridge Select is finished in toasted oak barrels from the Blue Ridge Mountains for about a year. Cider Cask is aged in premium Virginia cider barrels and Laird’s Apple Brandy barrels. Cabernet Cask in former California and France cab sauv casks. And Port Cask Reserve in Portuguese and Port-style Virginian wine casks.

First released in 2020, the Courage & Conviction focuses on new make going into casks for full maturation of at least six years. It spans four SKUs, each bottled at 46% ABV, including Bourbon Cask, Sherry Cask, Cuvée Cask, and Signature Malt, a blend of sherry casks, bourbon barrels, and European red wine casks.

Stay tuned for our thoughts on the whiskies, soon to be published to Whisky Magazine Australia.