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News and Press Releases - 2020

30 Best Whiskeys of 2020 - Wine Enthusiast

Wine Enthusiast has culled their list of the Top 100 spirits of 2020 to produce their 30 Best Whiskeys of 2020 list.  Boy, oh boy!  It's great to be included on that list:

Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye Whiskey Distillers Edition; $51, 94 points. This single-barrel rye is suitable for sipping or a dessert pairing. Look for bold sugar-cookie aromas and confectionary richness on the palate: vanilla, cocoa, hazelnut, maple sugar and mocha. The moderately long finish is marked by lemon peel and nutmeg. —K.N.

Read the full story, here.

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10 Best Rye Whiskey Brands - Esquire

What a lovely thing to be included in Esquire's "10 Best Rye Whiskey Brands" article:

Another craft distillery with a strong focus on rye is Virginia’s Catoctin Creek; it even trademarked the term "the Virginia Rye Whiskey." Founders Scott and Becky Harris (she’s also the chief distiller) are committed to making high quality, small batch rye whiskey that doesn’t lack for flavor or complexity. Some of these are young and relatively low ABV, like the 80-proof flagship Roundstone Rye, a nice sipping whiskey or Manhattan building block. All are made from a 100 percent rye mash bill, like the bottled-in-bond Rabble Rouser Rye, a 100-proof, four-year-old whiskey that explodes with spice and fruit. Go ahead and explore the limited releases from the distillery as well, like the Braddock Oak Single Barrel and Red Wine Finished Rye, or the biannual cask strength version of Roundstone Rye, which is finished in a maple syrup barrel.

You can read the full article, here.

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The History of Catoctin Creek - Mash and Grain

Mash and Grain did a really lovely, comprehensive history of Catoctin Creek, dating back to before the distillery when Becky and Scott first met.  It covers the seeds of entrepreneurship that led to its ultimate establishment.  This is the most in-depth article written to date on our story, and contains intimate details on our thinking before the venture even formed:

Distilleries require an incredible amount of upfront investment, so the loan certainly helped, but Scott and Becky were also pouring their entire life savings into this venture. In order to be licensed in Virginia, a distillery needed to have already purchased all of their equipment, set it up, and tested it to make sure it functioned properly. That meant securing a commercial location, signing a lease, thousands upon thousands of dollars in equipment, all before they could legally make a single drop. ... With all this money invested up front, they had sacrificed so much with no guarantee that the two of them had what it would take to make it work. ... [For] Scott it was more about faith. Faith in themselves.

He recounts a story from just after they were approved for their loan. Scott used a new social media platform, Twitter, to announce they had the financing to start their distillery. Shortly after, he received a call from Emily Maltby, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal who was doing a story on SBA loans, and wanted to feature them to lend a human element to the piece.

“We got into the Wall Street Journal. We hadn’t even made anything. We felt like we were ordained by God to do this. We could do no wrong. Of course it will be good if we make it, because it has to be. Why would we do all this trouble otherwise? That’s kind of the complex you have when you’re an entrepreneur. You’re just gonna go full steam ahead, because of course it will be good.” - Scott Harris

Divine intervention or not, their strict process backgrounds proved to be a big asset.

After a few years have passed, fast forwarding to present time, they write a little about how we do grain selection to create a mash bill of 100% rye:

Scott and Becky are proud to say that their rye grain comes from local Virginia farms, but when they were first starting out it was very difficult to find farmers who would grow grain for them. For the first 6 or 7 years, they had to rely on commercial mills where they had no control over the varietals they would receive. Now they do have a handful of local farms they work with. Their mash bill is 100% rye, but not all one varietal. Their farmers need to find varietals that work well for their land and climates, so the combination has changed from time to time. Whenever a farmer brings a new varietal to Becky, she distills one batch with 100% of that specific grain so she can evaluate it’s profile from a sensory standpoint to get an idea of how it may fit into their products. Once she has a sense of it’s character she will slowly start to incorporate it into the mashbill in small quantities to maintain a consistent flavor profile. For a company that mostly deals in single barrel releases, they are basically doing the blending at the front end of production, with each varietal lending complexity and diversity of flavor from the very beginning.

It is a wonderful long-form biography.  I hope you'll enjoy it. 

You can read the full article, here.

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World Whiskey Day - Forbes

We got word that we were one of only four craft distilleries featured in Forbes for World Whisky Day!

“Virginia had 3,600 distilleries in 1810, making primarily unaged rye, but also brandies from local fruits,” says Becky. “Our inspiration dates back to before 1830, when distilleries had not started mass production and before standard regional identities for rye existed. Each of my rye farmers has a slightly different flavor that their terroir brings to the whisky, and my 100% rye mashbill uses grain from 3-4 sources, fermented together, pot-distilled and aged to create the finished products.”

The expressions of Catoctin Creek’s Roundstone Rye whisky are chosen from single barrels which reflect the flavor profile, character, and excellence chosen for each, a process that paid big when Wine Enthusiast awarded high scores to all five rye whiskies in the February/March 2020 issue.

You can read that full article, here.

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A Whiskey Maker's Exploration of Craft - The New Yorker

Featured on The New Yorker, produced for Autograph Collection Hotels, follow along as Becky Harris, founder and head distiller of Catoctin Creek Distillery, travels to 2 Autograph Collection Hotels to gather inspiration from each boutique hotel’s dedication to craft. At her first stop, Schloss Lieser in Germany, she explores the hotel’s rich history and vision, the adjacent vineyards of the famous Moselle valley, and the unique flavors of the region.  View the full video, here.

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