Dan and I had the opportunity to play “hooky” last week and decided to check out a couple of distilleries in the area. We have some of the best wineries, cideries and breweries in the state near us and now distilleries have joined the crowd. One might think that this area likes it’s alcoholic beverages and they’d be right.
We started at Silverback Distillery in Afton. The distillery has a great tasting room inside but on nice days you can enjoy your samples on their outdoor patio. They currently produce premium vodka, gin and grain spirit. The Beringei vodka is very smooth on it’s own and mixes nicely into cocktails (of course, we bought some to take home with us). The Strange Monkey gin is my favorite due to the wonderful blend of botanicals that they use. The Blackback White grain spirit was a bit strong for me but Dan really enjoyed it. What is really nice about this small distillery is that they use “green” distillation and production techniques – including putting in a solar panel to aid their other green heating processes. They also source their grains from local farmers. Next up for them is the release of a Rye Whiskey this summer and then Bourbon. Looks like we will have to make another visit later this summer.
It was then on to Lovingston to visit Virginia Distillery Company. This is an impressive distillery with a grand Visitor’s Center which houses the tasting bar. They are currently putting the finishing touches on their grounds for their grand opening party planned for June 11th. It sounds like it will quite an event. After the grand opening they will be offering tours of the production and storage areas. The port finished Virginia Highlands Malt Whisky is a smooth whisky that we enjoyed sipping. In addition to the straight Malt Whisky sample we had three cocktails using the whisky. My favorite was South-of-Manhattan. We can hardly wait until their single malt whisky is available after it has finished it’s aging process in bourbon barrels.
We hope you enjoy these distilleries and their products as much as we did.
Dan & Kathryn
