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Mount Vernon is marking the nation’s 250th anniversary with three new whiskey releases, including the reconstructed distillery’s first bourbon.
Visitors can also sample three rye whiskies made with George Washington’s recipes and 18th-century methods on Saturdays in June and September.
One tasting ticket includes half-ounce pours of all three. The first is an unaged, clear straight rye bottled at 86 proof. Recognized as Virginia’s official state spirit, it is made from 60% rye, 35% corn and 5% malted barley. Its lack of barrel aging keeps it colorless and gives it a pronounced kick.
The second straight rye is aged in wooden barrels for two to four years, producing an amber color and flavors shaped by the barrels and smoke from the wood-fired stills. Tasters often describe it as sweet and spicy.
A premium straight rye completes the tasting. Aged for four to eight years in charred oak barrels, it is often characterized as the smoothest of the three.
Anniversary releases arrive this summer
Mount Vernon plans three special releases in the coming months.
The Washington’s Generals collectors’ series will add a limited-release premium rye in June honoring Gen. Henry Knox and the Revolutionary War campaign at Dorchester Heights.
On July 4, the distillery will release George Washington’s Spirit of ’76, a limited-edition, single-barrel bourbon bottled at cask strength. It is the first bourbon produced at the distillery and is promoted as having notes of vanilla, plum and brown sugar.
A wheated bourbon whiskey is scheduled to follow in September. Mount Vernon says the spirit is intended to reflect Washington’s balanced leadership.
Inside Washington’s whiskey operation
Tours of the reconstructed distillery and gristmill show how workers produced whiskey and milled grain during Washington’s lifetime.
Washington built his distillery beside the gristmill on his Dogue Run Farm in 1797. It operated until 1808, and the building burned in 1814. The present reconstruction opened in 2007 and was built with period materials.
The gristmill, constructed along Dogue Run in 1770 and 1771, could produce between 5,000 and 8,000 pounds of flour and cornmeal each day. Washington’s workforce created a mill pond near what is now the U.S. Coast Guard office on Telegraph Road, along with a millrace that carried water to the mill’s wheel.
More than 300 enslaved people lived at Mount Vernon. They grew grain, erected buildings and helped run the mill and distillery, making whiskey production one of Washington’s most profitable enterprises. In 1799, the final year of his life, the operation produced 11,000 gallons and made him the country’s largest whiskey producer.
Today, visitors can watch grain being ground in the working gristmill and see cornmeal fall into the hopper. At the distillery, workers prepare mash in fermentation vats and operate wood-fired copper pot stills using methods associated with Washington’s operation.
Bottles containing 375 milliliters are priced from $98 to $225. A $60 ticket includes the whiskey tasting, general admission, guided tours of the gristmill and distillery, and a take-home tulip-shaped Glencairn tasting glass.
Mount Vernon is also commemorating the nation’s semi-quincentennial with “Patriots Path,” a hands-on Revolutionary War encampment. Costumed interpreters demonstrate how soldiers lived and prepared meals from Army rations.