Early in 2020, when the country was beset by the COVID-19 pandemic, craft distilleries all across the nation stepped up to fill the void in hand sanitizer, pivoting their businesses to produce WHO-formula sanitizer that was FDA approved. The ACSA worked closely with the FDA to ensure that all of these craft distillers could be quickly added as "drug producers" (their definition of someone making sanitizer), so that the public would be assured that the products being put out in this emergency period were safe and regulated.

Fast forward to just before New Year's Eve 2020, when these same craft distillers begin receiving emails from the FDA stating that they owe the FDA $14,060 due February 11th, 2021, for the privilege of working with the FDA last year. What's more, these fees never existed when the distilleries registered with the FDA.  They were applied retroactively.  Many of these distilleries donated or sold their sanitizer at cost, and a surprise $14,000 bill would put many of them out of business.  Worse still, the fees doubled if the distilleries let their registration continue to January 1, 2021.

Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.

Becky Harris, Catoctin Creek's chief distiller and current president of the American Craft Spirits Association (ACSA), along with Margie Lehrman, CEO of the association, got on the phone with congress and officials at the Department of Health and Human Services. All day, during New Year's Eve, Becky and the organization are frantically speaking with HHS, explaining the unfairness of this surprise, retroactive fee.

In a story that doesn't often happen, the HHS agreed, and ordered the FDA to rescind the fees, bringing every craft distiller across the nation a very happy new year.

Drew Wilder reports from NBC 4 Washington:

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.

American Whiskey magazine covered our press release announcing our partnership with GWAR, the intergalactic metal band based in Richmond. 

As the story goes, members of the intergalactic shock rock band known as GWAR descended on this world as passengers on a flaming comet that would bring about the destruction of most life on Earth. The asteroid ploughed into the continent of Antarctica with devastating force, melting the ice, setting much of the world ablaze, and leaving a massive crater filled with the purest Antarctic water and a strangely intoxicating ichor that flowed from the veins of the immortal GWAR. Legend recorded these events as the tale of Ragnarök, the end of days. But like all endings, it was also a beginning. Now, this blood of the gods, harvested from the great caldera, has been distilled and bottled by Catoctin Creek as Ragnarök Rye.

Read the full story, here.

WUSA9's Kristen Berset from Great Day Washington interviews Scott Harris to find out about how the COVID pandemic has been affecting business, plus coverage of some of our recent awards, and a warm apply toddy cocktail to share for the holidays.

Click the video above to view.

We are delighted that Roundstone Rye 92 Proof "Distiller's Edition," which rated 94 points in January of this year, was selected for Wine Enthusiast's Top 100 of 2020!  In fact, we were the third highest rated rye whisky in the category!  Kara Newman writes:

This single-barrel rye is suit-able 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.

Read the full list of winners, here.

Barron's did a 20 minute Q&A with Becky Harris, our chief distiller and president, but also the president of the American Craft Spirits Association.  Jake Emen interviewed Becky for this piece:

When you started the distillery, did you get a lot of surprised reactions from people thinking Scott was the distiller and you were, oh, I don’t know, marketing or front of the house?

(Laughs.) Yes, all the time. It was one of things where you always have to prove yourself. I think there’s maybe a bit less of that now. And I have to say that people like Maggie [Campbell of Privateer Rum] and Nicole Austin [of Cascade Hollow Distilling, producers of George Dickel Tennessee Whisky] and Mel Heim out of Portland, all of those people that started way back and I remember reading about them and thinking, wow, I would love to meet them at some point! And it took a long time to get there but I think that’s the whole point. That makes people want to try it. Because they see that there are people like themselves already doing it.

You can read the full interview, here.

Wine and Country recently did a story on five charming places to visit in Loudoun, and Purcellville featured on the list.  Douglas Rogers writes:

If you prefer something stronger than tea, Catoctin Creek Distilling Company, the first Loudoun distillery since Prohibition, is in a brick warehouse nearby. Here, Becky Harris, arguably the greatest female whiskey maker in America, crafts award-winning rye, brandy and gin, all of which you can sample around the horseshoe-shaped bar tasting room out front.

We have to agree about the Becky Harris bit, but we may be biased.

You can read the full story, here.

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.

Very nice to be included with some heavyweight brands in Vinepair's 20 Best Rye Whiskey Brands 2020 roundup.  Of the Roundstone Rye Cask Proof, they write:

The 116 proof indicated on this bottle’s label prompts a double-take when sipping the whiskey. The alcohol burn is barely noticeable but the high ABV content does intensify the rye-forward profile and provides a never-ending finish. Subtle oak influence complements dried fruit and toffee notes.

You can read the roundup, here, and the review of the Cask Proof by itself, here.

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.

Maggie Kimberl at American Whiskey recently wrote a fantastic story on the brief and recent history of the hand sanitizer chaos that emerged during the COVID-19 crisis.  Many, many distilleries across the country, both big and small, immediately stepped up and provided much needed sanitizing alcohol to their communities, most pivoting in a manner of days and weeks.  Becky Harris found herself suddenly in a leadership role in ACSA to help navigate this confusing time, and stepped up to help people save lives--literally save lives.  We are so proud of her.  Maggie writes:

“Both individually and within my distillery we were suddenly being approached by people asking if we had alcohol,” Harris recalls. “Bleach was gone, Purell was off the shelves, and we had a ton of people asking if we had any they could get hold of. It was obvious that people were really desperate. We were getting tons of calls.” Harris reports the industry went from ‘can this be done?’, to doing it in a matter of days. She was asked by the executive committee at the ACSA if she could take the lead on the matter and she did.

You can read the entire story, here.

We are in fine company in this Chilled magazine article about the nine best virtual distillery tours:  Buffalo Trace, Lagavulin, Four Roses, and little ol' Catoctin Creek.  The article notes:

Capturing the experience of visiting a small distillery, Catoctin Creek has produced a video tour led by co-founder and distiller Scott Harris. As the fellow narrating the experience is also the one who not just makes, but also conceived of the whiskeys and other spirits in question (Catoctin Creek is known mostly for their rye whiskey, but they also have a gin and some brandies), he goes beyond what most virtual tours do in discussing his production process. Ironically, the smallest distillery on this list also produced what is arguably the best technical presentation of the bunch.

You can read the full story, here.

Join "the fellow" as he guides you on a virtual tour and tasting at the distillery. See how whiskey is made and enjoy some tasting notes and history about our small Virginia distillery.