George Washington's Rye Whiskey

George Washington's Rye Whiskey is made at a special place built to look like George Washington's old distillery at Mount Vernon. People found an old recipe for the whiskey by looking at papers from 1798 and 1799. Today, they make the whiskey in small amounts, and you can only buy it if you visit in person.

In the late 1700s, George Washington made a lot of whiskey. In 1797, he made 600 gallons, and by 1799, he was making almost 11,000 gallons a year—the most in America at the time.

Historians worked for many years to rebuild the distillery just like it was in the past. In 2007, they started using five big copper pots to make the whiskey, just like before. The first new batch came out in 2010. On March 22, 2017, Governor Terry McAuliffe made this whiskey the official spirit of the Commonwealth of Virginia because of a bill written by Virginia Senator Adam Ebbin.

Ingredients

George Washington's Rye Whiskey is made with 60 percent rye, 35 percent corn, and 5 percent malted barley.

Process

The staff uses George Washington's original recipe and 18th-century methods to make the whiskey. The grain is processed in Washington's water-powered gristmill, fermented in wooden tubs, and distilled in copper pots heated by wood fires. Unlike in Washington's time, this recipe calls for the whiskey to be distilled twice.