Nelson firm eager to offer single malt

The Highland label of double malt whiskey is available at several local restaurants, including the C&O off the Downtown Mall, D’Ambola’s in Afton, Devil’s Backbone Brewing Co. near Wintergreen and Thai Mex II in Nellysford. Bottles are also available at 66 Virginia ABC stores, including one at Albemarle Square shopping center and two on Emmet Street. Each bottle retails for just less than $70.

Richmond lawmakers have signed off on a measure to allow a soon-to-open Nelson County distillery to sell bottles of its Scottish-style single malt whiskey.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, would let the Virginia Distillery Co. sell its high-end spirits at ABC stores, in local restaurants and at its 95-acre distillery off U.S. 29 near Lovingston.

The company, which produces Eades whiskey, expects to start construction of its distillery campus by the end of the summer, with the first locally produced bottles of whiskey coming out by September or October.

The distillery is already offering three varieties of double malt whiskey as part of its “anticipation series,” all of which were produced in Scotland. The idea, said Managing Director Chris Allwood, is to generate buzz about Eades among whiskey connoisseurs and prepare the marketplace for the distillery’s six types of local single malt whiskey that will be released later this year.

Eades’ Highland label of double malt whiskey is available at several Central Virginia restaurants, including D’Ambola’s in Afton, Devil’s Backbone Brewing Co. near Wintergreen and Thai Mex II in Nellysford. Bottles are also available at 66 Virginia ABC stores, retailing for just less than $70.

Allwood said the whiskey is worth every penny.

“This whiskey is the real deal,” he said.

While the company is already permitted to sell its existing labels of whiskey, it requires the General Assembly’s approval and the signature of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to sell its planned single malt offerings.

Deeds said he introduced the measure because it would create jobs in Nelson County and it would provide a boost to Virginia farmers, as the distillery estimates it will purchase 700 tons of locally grown barley each year.

“It would allow them to basically create 19 new jobs over four years in Nelson County,” Deeds said. “That may not sound like a lot, but in Nelson County that’s a big chunk of jobs.”

Nelson is already home to 10 wineries and two craft beer breweries, he added. A premium whiskey distillery is a natural extension of that trend and would attract more tourists to the rural county, he said.

Del. Watkins Abbitt, I-Appomattox, had also sponsored a bill to allow the sale of Eades’ whiskey, but pulled it because he said it was pointless to have two identical versions of the same bill. He was also complimentary of Eades’ existing offerings.

“If you’re a double malt (whiskey) fan — and I am — it’s a very good product,” Abbitt said.

Once finished, the Eades distillery will be located across the street from a Jehovah’s Witnesses center on Eades Lane. The company currently has a warehouse on the site that is filled with its enormous, authentic Scottish distillation equipment, which Allwood and his partners bought in Turkey. Allwood estimates that the facility will produce 55,000 cases of whiskey annually.

“It’s quite a lot,” said Allwood, a former marketing entrepreneur and restaurateur. “I wouldn’t be able to drink it all.”

Allwood and his partners, U.S. Treasury Department employee Joe Hungate and dentist Brian Gray, have been working to open the distillery for the past five years. They settled on Nelson County in mid-2008, as they liked the region’s Scotch-Irish heritage, the surrounding scenery of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the climate, which they believe is ideally suited for aging whiskey.

Maureen Corum, Nelson County’s director of tourism and economic development, said she expects the Eades whiskey distillery to fit in nicely with the county’s other agri-tourism attractions.

“It’s another product in our asset inventory, if you will,” Corum said.