One such question hinges on the matter of aging. Scott Harris, founder of Catoctin Creek Distilling Company, weighs in with their perspective:
We get asked this often:"Any chance you guys are starting to hold back some Rye barrels to age longer?"
Our response:
Age is a tricky thing. If you look at all the craft distillers in the USA right now, most of the ones who are knocking it out of the park with double-gold medals, platinums, and such, are young distillers selling young-aged spirits. Examples include Balcones, Corsair, Tuthilltown, and of course us.
For decades, the whisky industry, and predominantly the Scotch industry, has boiled down ALL marketing of brown spirits to one single number: age. But it is more nuanced than that. It ignores the delicacy of the raw spirit, the climate where aging occurs, the types of wood, the mashbill, the yeast (the largest ignored flavor component there is!), and the distiller's art... all of which have as much or more influence on the spirit than age.
For example, a 21 year old Ardbeg loses the gorgeous smoky flavor of the 10 year old, due to the oak that takes over the dram. With longer aging, you step away from the original flavors present in the raw spirit, replacing them with just wood.
What we seek to do at Catoctin Creek is produce an amazing raw spirit, that has just enough oak on it to be pleasant, and replicates, as near as we can, a recipe found in the early years of the 20th century, when Virginia whisky was predominantly rye, pre-Scotch, and usually less than 4 years old. This would be "historical" whisky, or "reproduction" whisky, if you like.
Most likely, the Roundstone Rye will never be older than 2 years, as a result. We hope you enjoy it for what it is: a delicious young whisky.
Scott Harris
Founder and Distiller
Catoctin Creek Distilling Company
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| photo courtesy of Sarah Hauser, Virginia Tourism Corporation |
