THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES: Single Malt in the Blue Ridge
Regnery, Alfred S.
THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES Single Malt in the Blue Ridge by Alfred S. Regnery T HE AMERICAN DREAM LIVES ON in Virginia’s Blue It is a slow-moving Sunday afternoon in July, and Ridge....
...What could be more congenial than that...
...Isn’t that something the Scots make...
...After much experimentation—and being his own taster—he got what he was looking for...
...Wasmund had a bunch of sisters and no brothers, so he was responsible for splitting and carrying fire wood and keeping the fires burning...
...But no peat for Wasmund...
...Cherry and apple do more than hurry this whisky along...
...Wasmund, an enterprising and friendly fellow who used to sell insurance, got a few investors togeth er, bought the apple warehouse, and built himself a distillery...
...And when Rick Wasmund takes it to market, he doesn’t even have to outrun the revenuers...
...Wasmund wanted to make a single malt, but he did not want to just make more Scotch...
...Seven to eight years...
...Single malt in Virginia...
...out a bottle of batch #13, his latest, which we slowly There Rick Wasmund is trying to make the best sip as we talk...
...Once again, Wasmund departs from the norm...
...they leave a very pleasant and unique sweet and woody flavor—one that evokes the calm beauty of Virginia’s Blue Ridge...
...He particularly liked the way cherry smoke smelled...
...Wasmund thought about having barrels made rels of whisky...
...they leave a very bulk of all the whisky in the world—are both made from wheat, barley, and corn (maize in the pleasant and unique sweet and case of Scotch), which is blended to make a con-woody flavor—one that evokes the sistent-tasting drink...
...SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 59...
...He needed to get the cherry smoke into the bottle, so some cherry wood, mixed with a little apple, did the trick...
...in small quantities, the result—single malt Scotch whisky—was far superior...
...The barley is ground into a sweet and smoky mash, hot water is added, a little yeast, and the fermentation begins...
...I tillery in an old apple warehouse down at the end settle into an old rocking chair and Wasmund brings of a dusty road in a little place called Sperryville...
...By law, Scotch must stay in the barrel for three years, bourbon for two, and premium brands often sit for far longer...
...He liked to ex periment with different kinds of wood, and noticed the different smells produced by oak, maple, locust, and cherry...
...Alfred S. Regnery,publisher of The American Spec tator, is writing a book on the conservative movement...
...E XPERIENCED WHISKY DRINKERS are skeptical about anything that cures for less than several years...
...Wasmund lights up a cigar and we talk out of cherry but instead submerges little bags of chips about his American dream...
...Probably not a surprise, but it may be a sur-I am chatting with Wasmund in his distillery in prise to know that it is doing very well in a little dis-Sperryville, a couple of hours west of Washington...
...Being Scots, they also liked the fact that they could get far more money for each bottle...
...You may ask...
...After six months, the whisky is hand bottled, the taxes are paid, and it is sent off for sale...
...I’ve tasted enough still, sacks of barley, some old woodworking machinwhisky to be pretty discerning, I think, and in my mind, he’s coming damned close...
...My guess is that people investing in the whisky business are probably more interested in the product than the profit, and to be sure, Wasmund told me that at his last stockholders’ meeting batches of his single malt were tasted by all, and the investors went away in a very happy mood...
...Single malt Scotch sits for several years, during which the alcohol absorbs flavors from the oak of toasted cherry and apple wood into the whisky, taking, he says, “more time and passion than could be expected from a larger operation...
...But the Scots found that by using only malted barley, and making each batch calm beauty of Virginia’s Blue Ridge...
...As he grew up and developed a taste for drink stronger than Coca Cola, he wondered if he couldn’t figure out how to get some of the cherry smoke into a bottle of whisky...
...And, of course, bar-drink...
...Having little else to use, the Scots burn peat in the kiln, and the smoke filters up through the malted barley, leaving a musky and smoky flavor...
...But Wasmund found that the apple and cherry actually accelerates the process sufficiently that six months is plenty of time...
...Later the whisky is distilled and distilled again, one batch at a time, and then goes into old bourbon barrels which, by law, can only be used once (that is why bourbon barrels are readily available at your local garden store for planters...
...He starts with barley, he tells me, purchased from a Virginia farm, which he malts himself—a simple process of dampening it, spreading it out on a concrete floor, raking it periodically, and, when it sprouts, putting it in a kiln to dry it out and stop the germination process...
...The response...
...He sent a sample that he’d made six weeks earlier to the Scotch Whisky Institute and asked it to guess how old it was...
...THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES Single Malt in the Blue Ridge by Alfred S. Regnery T HE AMERICAN DREAM LIVES ON in Virginia’s Blue It is a slow-moving Sunday afternoon in July, and Ridge...
...The proof, of course, is in the pudding...
...Sure, but there is no rea son why Virginians cannot do it just as well...
...We are surrounded by the kiln and the single malt whisky in the world...
...Plenty of moonshine whisky has come out of those hills before, but nothing like this lovely single malt...
...58 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2007 ALFRED S. REGNERY ery and a woodstove and other stuff that you might barrel and blends to make a smooth and palatable expect to find in an old apple barn...
...Cherry and apple do more than hurry Bourbon and Scotch—which make up the this whisky along...
Vol. 40 • September 2007 • No. 7
