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Other Bourbon/American Classics:
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Buffalo Trace
George Washington, Whiskey Maker
by Joshua E. London
History came to life Wednesday, September 28th, 2006, with the official dedication of a freshly reconstructed 18th century whiskey distillery at historic Mount Vernon.
The distillery project was a painstaking and exacting historical effort, based on years of research and archeological excavation, conducted under the auspices of the Mount Vernon Estate and through the generous support of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and its members. On hand for the ribbon cutting was UK’s HRH Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, as well Bob McDonnell, Virginia’s Attorney General, Jim Rees, Mount Vernon Executive Director, Peter Cressy, Distilled Spirits Council president, and assorted names from within the Scottish and American spirits industry.
This $2.1 million George Washington Distillery stands on the footprint of the original distillery, and was reconstructed in accordance with 18th century techniques and materials. It is located adjacent to George Washington’s Gristmill along the banks of the Dogue Run Creek, just three miles down the road from the Mount Vernon Estate mansion in northern Virginia.
This George Washington Distillery is a near-perfect historical recreation—with slight modifications to keep it up to modern fire codes—of George Washington’s original distillery.
Father Of Our Country’s Whiskey
Although it is rarely taught in elementary school textbooks, the Father of our Country, Hero of the Revolution, and First President of these United States was one of the largest commercial producers of rye whiskey. Indeed, Washington made and sold booze from 1797 until his death in 1799, at which time his distillery was known to have produced more than 11,000 gallons of rye. This was much in excess of what anyone else is known to have been producing at the time.
This fact is hardly surprising considering that our Founding Fathers consumed vast amounts of alcohol. Apparently, Americans drank more alcoholic beverages between 1790 and 1840 than at any other period in our nation’s history—nearly a half pint of hard liquor per man each day. Even John Adams, who was often heard striking temperate notes against public taverns, imbibed a tankard of hard cider a day with his breakfast.
So what were Americans drinking back then? Well before the American Revolution it was mostly Madeira, hard apple cider and apple brandy, rum distilled from molasses, and really anything they could get their hands on to distill that wasn’t otherwise being taxed too greatly by the British. The demand for whiskey increased as supplies of rum ran dry during the American Revolution, when little could be obtained from the British West Indies. After the war, however, the tipple of choice was largely rye whiskey—it was both cheap and plentiful, and American!
Although most people think of bourbon as America’s sole contribution to the world of fine spirits, the first real whiskey produced and consumed in substantial quantities in this country was rye whiskey. Indeed, for generations America had a proud tradition in its domestic rye whiskey industry, particularly in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Eventually, of course, the industry was killed off by Prohibition, with only a few brands stubbornly languishing in the wilderness.
Although there has been a certain renaissance of the rye trade, and new brands have entered the market, the straight rye industry is still vastly under appreciated. As Jim Murray, regular contributor to Malt Advocate, once put it, “Rye whiskey is the world’s one seriously overlooked spirit and probably the finest and most flavorsome of all generic whisk(e)y types.”
Savior of the Nation
By the mid to late 18th century, whiskey and other distilled spirits were seen as staple foods to shake up an otherwise bland diet. Whiskey was also thought to be curative, healing colds, fevers, and palliative in the lessening of aches and pains. Americans back then even thought whiskey was superior to water, which was generally thought to be wretched and unhealthy well into the nineteenth century.
Distilling whiskey to keep everyone satiated was not only good business, but it was often also the cheapest way of shipping grains due to the westward expansion. Being a remarkably shrewd entrepreneur, George Washington took the advice of James Anderson, his Scottish plantation master (and the primary reason for the Duke of York’s presence at the dedication ceremony), and began distilling rye whiskey commercially at Mount Vernon in 1797.
According to Dennis Pogue, Mount Vernon associate director for preservation and chief historian, James Anderson “was an experienced distiller, first learning the craft in his native Scotland and then operating a distillery after he immigrated to America.” Hired in the fall of 1796, Anderson began “almost immediately to lobby his employer” to invest in putting up a distillery next to the Mount Vernon gristmill. Anderson’s talk of big profits was evidently compelling, as Washington soon agreed to enter the whiskey trade, despite his not knowing much of anything about it. At Anderson’s direction, an existing cooper’s shop near the gristmill was converted for whiskey production, and two copper stills were installed.
Thus, Washington entered the whiskey trade. Distillation began on February 22, 1797. During that first week, about 80 gallons of whiskey was produced; Anderson stored this in his cellar for safekeeping. Over 600 gallons poured off the stills all that year, and, says Pogue, within just a few months Anderson was confident enough in the potential profitability of this operation that “he wrote to Washington with a detailed proposal for enlarging the operation and building a new stone still house to accommodate it.” Washington was told that this extra investment would be about $640, which was not a trifling sum back then (this would be roughly $10,000 in today’s dollars). Thinking primarily of his projected profits, America’s first former president agreed.
Still at Work
Work on the distillery began in October, 1797 and by early March 1798, a 75 by 30-foot distillery with five copper pot stills was built and fully operational. Indeed, Anderson kept production fairly steady. Washington’s Mount Vernon whiskey venture went from producing just over 600 gallons in 1797 to nearly 4,500 gallons in 1798, to about 11,000 gallons in 1799. Washington’s profits, says Pogue, followed the same trajectory “from £83 to £334, to more than £600,” or about $7,500—close to $120,000 today. Clearly, Washington’s rye whiskey operation was a success.
Washington’s whiskey recipe was fermentation and distillation of 60% rye, 35% corn, and 5% malted barley. The large percentage of rye grain “gives the finished spirit a wonderful spicy, fruity character that is really rather different,” said Chris Morris, master distiller at the Woodford Reserve Distillery and the man responsible for the Brown-Forman Corporation’s award-winning specialty bourbons. Morris was one of nine distillers involved in producing George Washington’s rye whiskey at the newly reconstructed distillery. He pointed out that using 18th century production methods also contributes something to the distinctiveness of the whiskey’s flavor. “We’re using techniques and equipment that are basically obsolete,” Morris added, “but we’re doing a pretty good job of making it work.”
Ron Call, master blender of the Cruzan Rum Distillery, explained that most distilleries use a continuous still rather than a copper pot still, which produces a cleaner and more even spirit on a much larger scale and with better overall control. The few spirit producers that still use a pot still, like some rum distillers and Scotch malt whisky distillers, use substantially larger pot stills than at the George Washington Distillery. “Almost no one uses this kind of equipment anymore,” he said. “Well, no one legal,” added John Lunn, master distiller at George Dickel.
This is what makes this reconstruction of Washington’s distillery that much more extraordinary. The George Washington Distillery is, says Dennis Pogue, the best preserved colonial whiskey distillery anyone has so far found and acheologically excavated in the United States. Its recreation therefore offers the public a unique educational experience. As Pogue explained: “It was the Scottish and Irish immigrants who first produced American whiskey in the 18th century to escape taxes. Washington, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were the initial whiskey areas. But the iron-free limestone waters and abundance of maize in Kentucky and Tennessee attracted the whiskey makers west. We do not have any of the original distilleries left and that is why Washington’s distillery is so important.”
This is also why the Distilled Spirits Council has invested about $2.1 million in bringing this project to life. The distillery will also serve as the gateway of the American Whiskey Trail, another Distilled Spirits Council initiative. The George Washington Distillery will be “the only historic site in the country capable of showing the early American distilling process from seed to barrel” as a press release puts it.
It’s an Education
In another official press release, Dennis Pogue says “George Washington was so much more than the image that most Americans have of him of the ‘old man’ on the dollar bill… Recreating his distillery—one of the largest in America when it was built—will give visitors the opportunity to see Washington in one of his many lesser-known roles, in this case as a dynamic, risk-taking entrepreneur.”
Whether or not this educational effort ever effectively changes the image most Americans have of George Washington is anyone’s guess. What is certain is that breathing life back into the George Washington Distillery and producing commemorative bottles of his rye whiskey establishes, once and for all, that as a man, George Washington distilled the spirit of our nation.
The George Washington Distillery will be open to the public starting in April, 2007. The distillery will remain functional, but only a very small amount of whiskey will ever be produced there, and even then it will be chiefly for commemorative bottlings.
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