Virginia distilleries – C-VILLE Weekly

Ivar Aass and his wife, Sarah Barrett, moved to Charlottesville from New York in 2012 with a singular purpose: to distill high-quality spirits in a place that, in Aass’ own words, has “heaps of local pride and an understanding and appreciation of all good drink and food.”

In 2015, Aass and Barrett’s Spirit Lab Distilling became the first distillery in the City of Charlottesville. While Aass says his previous experience in the wine and spirits industry was an asset, he faced numerous regulatory challenges at both the city and state level. This led to a “quiet start,” he says, but he feels genuinely moved by the growth and support the business has received in the past six years. “Our local fans really validate why Charlottesville was the perfect spot for us [to start a distillery].”

Spirit Lab makes a wide range of products sourced from local ingredients, but Aass’ true love is his own version of an American single malt whiskey. With a nod to tradition, along with the goal of a unique and truly local expression, the small batches he produces are a hit with fans and restaurants as far away as Washington, D.C.

Virginia Distillery Company, in nearby Lovingston, recently released its American single malt whiskey, Courage & Conviction, after many years of anticipation. With distilled products such as single malt whiskey, distillation is just the beginning of the process. The spirit must also rest in barrels for extended aging, which adds the color, flavor, and complexity that is so sought after. When Virginia Distillery Company was founded in 2011, it started with whiskey distilled overseas and finished locally. Soon, its popular Virginia-Highland product line featured whiskey that was a blend of local and Scottish distillate.

The new American Single Malt represents the first product in its line that is made from 100 percent North American-sourced malted barley, fulfilling a vision almost a decade in the making. The initial release is a blend that is 50 percent aged in Kentucky bourbon casks, 25 percent aged in sherry casks, and 25 percent aged in repurposed red wine casks. Recently released solo cask offerings may be of even more interest to whiskey aficionados as they showcase bourbon casks, sherry casks, and wine casks as single bottlings without blending. The four new singles also earned several awards from the American Spirits Council of Tasters in June 2021.

Ian Glomski started Vitae Spirits Distillery in Charlottesville after “what could possibly be called a midlife crisis.” Glomski had previous experience in beer and wine, and, like Aass, found the regulatory hurdles difficult. “Virginia ABC implements a convoluted set of statutes and regulations that are a spaghetti-mess of layers that have built up ever since the end of prohibition,” he says.

At Vitae, which was founded in 2015, the spirits are distilled from sugar cane, in the tradition of rum making. This base spirit is the foundation of such products as gin, coffee and orange liqueurs, and barrel-aged products. With all of these, Vitae focuses on local ingredients and features several collaborations with other area producers.

Both Glomski and Aass hope for a day when the regulatory landscape is friendlier to growth and sales. Glomski bemoans the “current set of laws that is specifically designed to throttle growth and success” of the industry. He would like a relaxation of regulations controlling what can be served in tasting rooms, an extension of wholesale pricing (distilleries must pay retail price to buy their own product from the state), and more attention given by ABC stores to local distilleries as compared to large international corporations.

Aass explains that Virginia takes a “massive” amount of the bottle price that would otherwise go to the producer. Supporting local makers is in many ways synonymous with looking for high quality,” he says, and the very high cost of doing business threatens the quality of the product. His hope is that legislators will begin to see Virginia craft distilleries less as a small source of tax revenue and more as a source of quality and local pride. “There are plenty of mediocre spirits being made by the huge distilleries, why add to that?” says Aass.

Sip and savor

Charlottesville-area consumers now have access to a wide range of well-crafted spirits, the result of many years of vision, planning, hard work, and persistence.

Virginia Distillery Company
(vadistillery.com)

Courage & Conviction now available as single bottlings of bourbon, sherry, and cuvée cask (each $84.99). The Cuvée is recommended, but true whiskey lovers will want a bottle of each.

Spirit Lab Distilling
(spiritlabdistilling.com)

Batch #9 of single malt whiskey is sold out. Look out for Batch #10 ($74.99). Everything is made in small production, so get on the email list to receive release notifications.

Vitae Spirits Distilling
vitaespirits.com)

Two that stand out are Distiller’s Reserve Smoked Rum ($49.99) and Orange Liqueur ($38.99), which is made from locally grown Hardy oranges.

High spirits: A scientist and inventor perfects the art and craft of distilling

Robin Felder sees connections. For instance, when he installed the 250-gallon solid copper still at his and his wife Mary’s hilltop home near North Garden, he knew that the high-tech machine would need a considerable water source to cool and condense the evaporated alcohol into the final, drinkable product. The swimming pool, sunk subtly into the ground in front of their residence, is, oh, about a hundred paces away from the freestanding still house, close enough to reach with a pipe carrying hot steam, so… You can see where this is leading. Even in the dead of winter, a dip in the warm water awaits.

That detail provides a glimpse into the expansive mind of a distinguished UVA professor of pathology who is also an entrepreneur and inventor. Felder, 65, holds a PhD in biochemistry from Georgetown, did his post-doctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, and has launched nine ventures out of UVA’s business-incubator program. His list of 27 patents and patents pending—mostly in robotics and biomedical sensory technologies—starts in 1994 and runs to 2018.

Roughly five years ago, then 30 years into his “day job” at the university, Felder decided to indulge his passion. He had started home-brewing as a teenager, with his military father’s help. “He was all about self-sufficiency, a real DIY guy,” Felder says. Nearly 50 years later—next April and sometime in the summer or fall, respectively—Felder will go to market with three types of “varietal gin” (he has applied to trademark the phrase) and brandies made with apples, blood peaches, and Burford pears. Because the apple distillate lacks a distinct “nose,” it is currently gaining one by resting in repurposed bourbon barrels from Felder’s neighbor, Ragged Branch Distillery.

No prices have been set, but the spirits will demand a premium, due to the labor-intensive production and large quantity of raw materials required to make small amounts of the finished product. “Three bushels of Burford pears—that’s about 120 pounds—go into making one 375ml bottle of pear brandy,” Felder says.

Felder grows the pears on the couple’s 24-acre plot. Like the abundant 2019 grape harvest in central Virginia, Felder’s pear trees delivered a record yield of 4,000 pounds this fall. He credits the bounty to the dry, hot weather, and to the counsel of Tom Burford, the master orchardist of Vintage Virginia Apples and Albemarle CiderWorks. (Known as “Professor Apple,” Burford’s also adept with other fruits. The Burford pear is named for him.)

“Burford pear is difficult to grow—susceptible to disease and damage by pests,” says Felder, who uses only organic methods. “Tom really helped me with planting and maintenance issues. If you don’t get the farming right, you’re not going to get the brandy right.”

A slender man with clear green eyes and thick blond hair parted on the left, Felder wears pressed khakis and a crisp light-blue oxford shirt with the collar buttoned down beneath a V-neck sweater.

“I reached a certain age where I had a choice between a little red Mercedes convertible to drive around in and cheer me up, or a still,” says Felder. With a hearty endorsement from Mary, to whom he’s been married for 45 years, he chose the latter.

We are sitting in the living room of the couple’s home, Montepiccolo—which means “tiny mountain,” a wink at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. The view filling the glass walls, facing southwest, displays dimming sunlight on the colorful fall foliage. Mountains ripple in the distance—the tall one, more than 30 miles away, is Wintergreen.

“The Mercedes is really not ‘him,’” Mary says. The corners of her husband’s lips curl into a little smile. “I’m a farmer,” he says. “I drive a Toyota pickup truck.”

The statement would be false modesty if it weren’t true, just as the Jefferson reference would be grandiose if Felder weren’t both a dedicated orchardist and accomplished inventor, a person, like Jefferson, interested in earthy pursuits as well as intellectual ones.

As the sun sinks into the mountains, Felder leads the way down the stone steps from the driveway to the distillery. Inside, a crescent-shaped bar curves to the left of the bulbous, gleaming still. The room is immaculate—a laboratory—and the air is redolent with the aroma of booze and fruit. Felder explains that, after taking a three-day course in Lexington, Kentucky, the U.S. mecca of distilling education and experimentation, he elected to get the same brand of still he learned on.

It’s made by Vendome, founded in Louisville, Kentucky, in the early 1900s. Felder’s model is steam-heated and can distill up to 600 gallons of gin a day. “I didn’t want to be limited by the still I bought, I wanted to be limited by my market,” he says.

He steps behind the bar and pours small samples of gin and pear brandy into fluted glasses. He informs me that I am an “official pre-market tester” not a “taster,” because he’s not yet licensed for the latter. The liquors are aromatic and smooth, with pine and citrus (gin) and deep fruit flavors (brandy) that linger long after a sip.

These are Robin Felder’s next great inventions—a delicious melding of art and science—and soon you’ll be able to sample them for yourself.