Maggie Kimberl of American Whiskey magazine recently caught up with Becky Harris for an update on the distillery:

MK: Catoctin Creek whiskeys have garnered some major accolades over the years. What are you most proud of?

RH: This is a really challenging question: if we are talking about the whiskies, they’re like my children, and I love them all! As for the accolades, I am most proud of the consistency we have shown over the past years, reflected in those scores.

You can read the full article, here.

Nice to see Becky included in The Spirits Business roundup of ten female-founded spirits brands on International Women's Day.

Becky Harris co-founded Catoctin Creek Distilling Company in Virginia with her husband Scott in 2009. Based in Loudoun County in the north of Virginia, Catoctin Creek produces whiskey, gin and brandy.

With a degree in chemical engineering, Harris also serves as the chief distiller for the company and has previously worked at companies such as Amoco, YDK America, and CIBA, specialising in industrial processes and production systems.

In May 2020, Harris was appointed president of the board of directors for the American Craft Spirits Association.

In 2017, Constellation Brands acquired a minority stake in Catoctin Creek Distilling Company.

Last year, the producer spent US$1m on new equipment to triple its production capacity.

You can read the full article, here.

This is one of our favorite podcasts, and it was a real pleasure to be on this show.  The comfortable style of the interview led to a lot of background and personal history on the distillery.  Plus, it was a lot of fun!

Heavy metal is all over whiskey these days, and GWAR is certainly among the bands doing whiskey releases.  Tripp Mickle breaks it down at The Wall Street Journal:

The prog-metal band Gwar, who claim to be ancient aliens abandoned on Antarctica, partnered on a rye with Catoctin Creek Distillery in Purcellville, Va. The development was led by drummer Brad Roberts who performs as Jizmak da Gusha and wears a mask on stage that resembles the mythological teeth-gnashing dog guarding hell, Cerberus. He said that he and the band’s guitarist, who calls himself Balsac the Jaws ‘o Death, went to the distillery once a week to sample whiskey before selecting one to bottle.

“We liked the first one they made but lied so we could go back and get more drunk,” said Mr. da Gusha, whose band’s songs include “Fire in the Loins,” “We Will Kill Everything,” and “Biledriver.”

You can read the entire story, here.

Recent coverage in Maxim magazine was quite good:

Catoctin Creek teams up with metal maestros of havoc, gore and monstrosity GWAR for their highly limited edition Ragnarök Rye release. The intergalactic monsters apparently traveled to Purcellville, Virginia to destroy Planet Earth, as they are wont to do.

“We were quite surprised when GWAR showed up at our distillery,” Catoctin Creek founder Scott Harris tells us. “Purcellville is a quiet town, so to have these intergalactic visitors was honestly a little stressful. We had to constantly keep an eye on them to keep them from breaking stuff, and they even tried to eat our dog, Otto. The only way we could get them to leave was to agree to bottle their whiskey for them.”

So Harris and Catoctin Creek did, crafting a 92-proof rye first aged in charred new white oak, then sent for another sentence in both sugar maple and cherrywood barrels. Beyond brokering galactic peace Catoctin Creek also managed to make one helluva rye. $100 / 46% ABV

Read the full story, here.

The EU tariffs on American whiskey are finally gone!  After three long years, we can now compete on a fair basis of free trade.  Bruce Schreiner writes for the Associated Press:

With the trade barrier coming down, Catoctin Creek Distillery in Virginia is looking to start reshipping its rye whiskey to EU markets, said Scott Harris, the distillery’s co-founder and general manager.

“We have a chance to go over to Europe now and compete fairly and bring our products back in at competitive prices,” he said. “This is what we’ve been waiting for the whole time.”

But it could take a few years to regain the lost European business, Harris said.

Read the full story, here.

I think they enjoyed it.  Have fun with this!  Thanks for the review, guys!

Check out Scott Harris talking on episode 4 of the Distill and Disrupt podcast.  Here he is talking about the GWAR collaboration and how we came to bottle whisky for the heavy metal band. 

Listen on Spotify, here.

Catoctin Creek continues to amass the awards, with two new gold medals and a silver medal from the American Whiskey Masters from the Spirits Business in London, UK.  Three spirits were reviewed and received awards:

GOLD - Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye 92 Proof "Distiller's Edition"

GOLD - Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye Cask Proof

SILVER - Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye 80 Proof

"The American Whiskey Masters 2021 entries were up by over 85% on last year and was therefore very well represented and very competitive with 78 x entries from 16 x different companies and therefore to receive any sort of medal is something that every company should be extremely pleased with. However, for Catoctin Creek Distilling Co, as a first time entrant to this specific masters competition, to receive 2 x GOLD medals and 1 x SILVER from their combined total of 3 x entries and from within a very competitive Masters competition is a truly fantastic achievement! Massive Congratulations!"

 

The Daily Beast has the round-up on the history of our collaboration with the heavy metal band, GWAR.  Max Watman, who has been writing about craft spirits for well nigh twenty years now, has the whole backstory on the band, and even about Catoctin Creek in the early days.  He also manages to make the history damn fun to read:

At first, the marriage of Catoctin Creek and GWAR would seem unlikely, even ill advised. GWAR isn’t exactly the sort of music you put on to enhance your contemplation of the complexities of aroma rising up from your tasting glass. Scott Harris, who founded Catoctin Creek Distillery with his wife Becky in 2009, told me “I’m kind of a Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand kind of guy.”

The reason the union makes sense, however, is because Catoctin Creek comes from a very similar place. Different medium, different aesthetic, but Scott and Becky Harris got into the distilling with the original handful of small scale distillers. Back then, it wasn’t clear that distilling was a viable business. It wasn’t even clear that you could get a fire marshal to give you approval for a distillery. In fact, the odds of it working were perhaps longer than the probability that a horror movie-inspired heavy metal band would take off in a college town.

You can read the full article, here.

American Whiskey magazine featured our founder and general manager, Scott Harris, in their recurring "Castaway" article, where they ask industry people what five whiskeys and one luxury item would they take if they were stranded on a desert island.  Scott's opinions tend toward Scottish malts, with a few exceptions.  When asked for a luxury item to bring to the island, he responds:

"I suppose it would be too much to ask for a yacht. Obviously, with a yacht, I could leave the island, but maybe I wouldn’t want to. It sounds quiet. Honestly, after spending the last year-plus quarantining at home and working like a dog, being stranded on an island sounds perfect. So, yes, a yacht would be excellent. I would live in it, and have parties, and drink my whisky collection. I promise not to leave. But I may send it out for more whisky."

You can read the entire article, here.