“Kingsbarns was established in 2014 but it wasn’t until March 2015 that we filled our first cask. We are an independently owned, Family run distillery. Owned and operated by the Wemyss family. What sets us apart? Well it’s a few different aspects in my opinion, but the liquid comes first and foremost. We have some unique production techniques including producing clear wort, using 2 separate strains of yeast in long fermentations and running the stills extremely slowly to ensure lots of copper contact. All of these things contribute to achieving an elegant and intensely fruity new make spirit.

Our Production Director, Isabella Wemyss then has the job of pairing the Kingsbarns spirit with the right cask type! We predominantly use first fill casks that are the perfect fit for our spirit from a few select suppliers. What is fantastic about the fact the family are so involved in directing the whisky style is that the right strategic decisions are made to get the best possible end product. We don’t have an accountant buying the wood and skimping on it. Money is spent where it matters, on great quality raw materials! We are also striving to anchor the dram to the place its made, so we only use locally grown barley and we mature all our whisky in Fife warehouses.”

“We certainly have a few characters working here! In all honesty we have a brilliant team of folk that are extremely passionate about the product and experience we provide. And there are so many stories of funny things that have occurred here. But you always learn from mistakes, that’s the important thing. I recall in the very early days of cask filling when we were still working out how to operate the cask filler we accidentally overfilled a cask when the spirit was being delivered to a barrel at full blast. We all ended up covered in new make spirit! Thankfully we only lost 2 or 3 litres of precious distillate, and it never happened again but at the time it was quite an experience.”

“Sustainable practices are such an important issue these days and its crucial that we do all we can to strive for continuous improvement in that regard. we minimise our carbon footprint by using local barely within 6 miles of the distillery and draw water from beneath the distillery itself. We also recycle our draff and send it off to a local farmer to be used as cattle feed. Waste water is processed before going to a reed-bed and pond onsite which is great for biodiversity. We have recently started keeping bees too at hives behind the empty cask storage area, important pollinators for plants of course! Going forward, we have plans to put in a 100Kw solar scheme at the distillery which should provide about 60% of power requirements for the site.”

“I think nowadays there is an increased emphasis on flavour. Folk probably drink slightly less but drink better and are willing to try younger malts too which is fantastic. The adage of “older is better” doesn’t apply quite as much as it did in the past. Moreover if you are a small producer of malt whisky like ourselves, you need to focus on quality of product first and foremost. At the end of the day what is important is smell, taste and the experience of the drinker. We are never going to be able to compete in price with some of the big brands so for us, we have concentrated on doing our level best to make an interesting and characterful malt. Get the dram under folks noses and if its decent whisky, you can let the liquid do the talking!”

“We wouldn’t want to give anything away especially before we have publicly announced anything, but we do have a few very exciting releases due the end of this year and as always you can expect some exceedingly high quality single cask expressions coming from Kingsbarns in the near future too.”

To find out more about Kingsbarn Distillery and their range of whisky please visit here.

Weather is the secret to what we do. The temperature changes daily by at least 30 degrees year-round, so when people taste our barrel aged spirits they pick that up in the spirit.  Our clear spirits represent good clean fermentation and slow precise distillation.

The complete lack of support from U.S. distributors. They treat small brands with little understanding or interest.

Didn’t see that coming.

Probably when Gov. Brown famously came back from the climate summit in Paris, and I got a call from a member of the Democratic party. They wanted to create a basket for the governor to present to him on his return. It turned out he was a big fan of our vodka & whiskey.

He sent us a note thanking us for it as well as a call. He was moving into the new Governor’s house upon return to California. They were planning to sleep that first night back in the house and celebrate with a cocktail.  He loved seeing our California spirits sitting in the front entry way of the house.

Expansion of the American single malt and rye whiskey categories. Both really excite me!

Not to be a pretentious A-Hole, and to accept critiques & praise & education equally whenever possible.

That the quality of the juice has little to no effect to the viability of the product in the marketplace. So much goes into marketing a brand that you have to do so much more – marketing, messaging, etc.

There are people who just got it. There are people I speak to that I really respect in the industry who are, when they speak, do so in a coded language, that I still don’t quite understand it. To some, this part just comes naturally.

Sure, I tell the story a bit more now than I used to. There is a gentleman named Mr. Robin Robinson who handed me the biggest slice of humble pie that I ever had. We were in Chicago at the Indie Spirits Expo when I told him that I didn’t like blended Scotches. He asked, “Why?”, and I said that they weren’t all that.

He then proceeded to take a number of single malts, taste me out on each one, and explained just how difficult it is to bring those flavors together and make them gel together. It really opened my mind and from then on, I kept an open mind. It was an area where I thought I knew it all, but I learned I was wrong.

I see new household brands emerging, that taste unique & different.

I am no booze historian, yet the easy answer is whisky is delicious. I can’t understand why it wasn’t as big in past decades with people.

But more seriously, Whiskey has somehow been able to be both mysterious and yet pedestrian. You can throw some Bourbon or Scotch on the rocks, or with Coke, or you can purchase some exotic bottle that you only drink neat. It just has such a broad appeal.

The ones I am most involved with these days, and most aware of, are the proliferation of single malts globally. American Single Malt is really having a powerful moment and gaining both recognition and momentum.

Closer to home is the birth & growth of Texas whiskey. It is truly exciting that in my lifetime I am getting the chance to participate in the beginnings of two brand new and flourishing whisky styles.

I don’t like getting hoarse from all the talking that I do, but I do enjoy the whiskey events around the world and trying all the other whiskey to see what others have been doing. We get very excited about this since we get to try all that whiskey, all in one place, all at one time. It is also interesting to see what folks are doing with new strains of grain as well.

So, this is not bullshit at all – the glass itself is built really, really well! This from a guy who breaks a lot of glasses! I like the nose on it, as someone who blends whisky. I can really move the Glencairn glass as I swirl it. The knuckle of my thumb fits perfectly on the base of the glass, so it is a perfect fit.

My only qualm is if the base was only a little taller so that my hands were further from my nose when nosing a spirit. That way any aroma of my hand wouldn’t interfere with the aroma of the spirit.

Visit the Sonoma website here

I like to say that I grew up around the industry as opposed to in the industry. My father got out of the business back in the 40s. He was actually a baseball player, in the Bourbon League, back when each distillery had a team. and he & his brother’s main job was playing on the distillery team, but you had to work for the distillery, so they got the job just to get on that team.

My aunts & uncles & cousins were all in the business. And even my mom peaked my interest when at an early age she would take my brother Paul & me to the Dant Distillery since she was proud of her family heritage. When I graduated from school the whiskey industry was heading down so I pursued a degree in landscape architecture for the first 20 years of my career. But I always kept coming back to distilling, though regulations were still not friendly for starting up a distillery of my own.

Then the internet came around and I did more research, and discovered Dry Fly Distillery in Washington State and Fritz Maytag with Anchor Distilling in San Francisco. These were more on the scale that was available to me. I also went to an ADI Conference in Louisville where Bill Owens really helped me out a lot, and I was just bitten by the bug. I had already been in the restaurant business with my brother Paul for 10 years, then we decided to open our own distillery. We started the whole process in 2009, in 2010 we incorporated & by 2011 we opened the doors.

We use pot stills, instead of column stills which many other Bourbon producers prefer, and are using an old fashion worm-tub instead of condensers. It is my belief that pot stills provide a richer quality spirit before they even hit the barrels.

I, personally, believe that Fall & Winter productions produce a better whiskey here in Kentucky. Low humidity, cooler temperatures- the yeast loves it! Happy yeast makes great whiskey! We also use a proprietary yeast which we were able to revive from residue from our grandfather’s dona jug (an old copper jug to store distilling yeast) some 50 years after the last time he used it!

For me, it was the explosion for the demand of Bourbon. We didn’t get into the business because of that…it just happened around us.

Several of the large distilleries in Kentucky in the 1970s went into the fish industry. Business was in the doldrums and the big producers were looking for another revenue stream (so to speak).

It just seems like everyone from that era has a story about that time, and how all the fish died. It was just the biggest cluster you could imagine! Though I was at a dinner for the KDA when the subject came up, but then a wife of one of the participants turned to tell us, “We don’t talk about the fish!”

Barrel picks from different liquor stores & bars, which give you a curated variety to choose from.

If you are trying to make cheap whiskey, I wouldn’t try it in Texas

The first surprise was and still is the biggest. The spirits industry is not a free market. I fought “the system” tooth and nail for years. It kept me up at night. Spirits makers don’t get to control their distribution. That is handled by another “tier”. The interaction with the customer is handled by yet another tier. All of these tiers are legislated. If you want to succeed in this business you have to learn to work within a system that has been carefully and legally crafted over years to benefit the existing players.

We try not to take ourselves too seriously but we do take our work seriously. So, most of our stories are about the dumb things we have done. One that jumps to mind is my brother’s decision a while back to go outside late one night to use the head. That’s standard operating procedure in rural Texas. Apparently, game cameras are also standard operating procedure these days and Dan chose the wrong spot. So, I imagine if you want to see my ugly brother’s giblets, they are probably out there on the internet for the world to see.

Over the past 10 years there were a lot of good business people that saw an industry with great growth potential and jumped on board. That’s a good thing. It has given whiskey a bigger platform and more attention. But I think that many of those folks don’t have a story to tell or a love of the process. They are making widgets as fast as they can and are trying to make the best widgets possible at the best price possible. But the competition keeps getting tougher. In order to get their share of the pie they are having to do unique things to get attention like adding flavouring to their whiskey. I don’t think whiskey drinkers will play that game for very long. Peanut butter whiskey may introduce new people to whiskey but most of those people will go on to beef flavoured rum when that comes out. I think the folks that will be left standing are the ones that are in it because of the beauty of the process. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against flavoured whiskey but that flavouring needs to be as thoughtful and honest as the whiskey itself.

One thing we like is emphasis in slow reduction to your final whiskey. Especially with the aggressive weather we have down here in Texas. We like to give the water & whiskey extra time to interact with the barrel during maturation.

How the regionality has started to rise in the U.S. There was once just Kentucky and everywhere else. Now you are starting to see traditional Midwest spirits, and also the Empire Rye in NY State or the Maryland Rye, or even Texas whiskey.

Also, winning the World Whisky Awards has been a huge boom to us. Even during this pandemic, we are busier than ever!

There was the time that Berry Bros. & Rudd in the UK gave us a call to do a collaboration. Their initial email ended up in our junk mail, but once we found it was legit. That was a huge surprise. Unfortunately, after only two batches the rise in tariffs pushed the whole program overboard.

The single barrel will continue grow in popularity, as well as higher proof or barrel proof whiskey. There could also be renewed interest in the art of American blended whiskey.

I can tell you that varieties of grains matter. It is a missed opportunity to overlook this.

To oversee the expressions of a specific varietal of grain is extremely important.

I’ll give you good & bad. The most unpleasant surprise I have seen is the competition for shelf space in the on-premise. The amount of work to do to maintain a placement is more than I imagined.

The good surprise is how much interest there is from people to come and visit us. We have had over 30,000 people come thru our visitor center with people from every continent.

On the day we released our first Bourbon expression thru the front door of our tasting room, we had every family member on site to handle the business. An hour after our release, we had 800 people lined up down the road, sold out the food truck and thought we were going to drown in guests. After that, I couldn’t wait to do that again.

I think once the government starts to unleash people back into society, people will embrace small distillers for all that they did to try and help during the quarantine in 2020.

I went to Buffalo Trace, where I saw some of their old bottles from the 1800s, which inspired the look of our bottles today. The future home of Journeyman distillery was discovered driving down the street of Three Oaks one day looking for an old factory building. Though I lived in Indiana the laws did not allow for craft distilling, I was very close to the Michigan state line, and visited Three Oaks and the rest is history. I wanted an old factory building to give the feel of an old whiskey brand.

The building is an old buggy whip & corset factory that was owned by the local Temperance Movement leader EK Warren, which gave it a great back story. With annexing the attached buildings, we have over 40,000 square feet including a restaurant, production facility, bar, and 2 3 event spaces. Behind the distillery, we have a replica of the St. Andrew’s putting green that we call Welter’s Folly (scaled down 3x) in honor of my time spent there and to encourage kids and families to get out and play.

We also have 4 rental properties that we use to host bartenders, members of the trade, and visitors. We do great business hosting weddings, corporate events & retreats, plus seasonal artist markets. In October, we will put on a Barrel Aged Beer Festival Called Islay’s barrel out front of the distillery working with local breweries that use our whiskey barrels to age their beer. The barrel aged beer fest raises money for charity. This gets a great attendance!

It’s just better. It’s more complicated, more depth, more complexity. You love the nuances to it and there is a sense of place. You open up a bottle and enjoy the aroma & taste. You just don’t get that from vodka. Plus, there are better stories behind whiskey brands, like Jack Daniels. I am not a rep for Jack Daniels, but I think everyone should visit that distillery, which is like a historic landmark.

I see that competition has dramatically increased, much like what I see in craft brewing.

You see more distilleries/breweries concerned with just selling out the front door instead of getting distribution more than state-wide, making your place a destination. Less worry of haggling with distributors & accounts.

I think craft distilling will retreat in the sense that it becomes what the Aussies call “a cellar door” experience, meaning making the distillery more of a destination place with less of a focus on distribution. I also think that the major brands will become even more dominate in the short term, and with the declining economy and forced closure of many small distilleries around the united states, consumers will be looking for more economical spirits during this time.

Though I think the brands that do make it thru this pandemic will be stronger for it at the other end. They will have withstood a tremendous downturn, but learn some very important lessons in doing so that will benefit that in the long term.

Like a lot of things, when you are looking to have the best whiskey experience possible, you want to use the best glass available. Glencairn has been around for 20 years and has not only survived but grown during all those years, so you know it’s great.

We want our visitors drinking from the Glencairn Glass, and it being a family business, we respect that. The Davidson Family is great, and we support family businesses. We feel that it has been a mutually beneficial relationship and Marty Duffy is the BOMB!

To find out more about Journeyman Distillery visit their website here.

Born in Rochester, NY but moved to Virginia after school. After school I worked as a Certified financial planner. I was always a fan of whiskey as well as very attuned to the fruit aromas of various wood. Inspired by a Johnnie Walker tasting in NY where they were waxing on about the alluring smell of peated malt, it got me think that I wanted to check out grain smoked with fruit wood. This was 1999, when I was 40 years old.

I was living in Virgina at the time, where there were a lot of old apple orchards, so naturally I thought an old apple factory would make for an ideal location for my first distillery. We incorporated in 2002, with a number of fits & starts, but finally moved into the Sperryville location in November 2004, then started distilling in 2005.

In 2010, I married, started a family and we all lived above the distillery. In 2015, we started a second distillery at an old motel complex in Williamsburg, VA that has 10 different buildings!

There are no “secrets”. (wink-wink). If I told you they wouldn’t be a secret, now would they? Other than start with great clean grain. We used to work with a local farmer, but he passed away. Now we work with his family to source our grain.

The number of people who don’t know by now how whiskey is made or do not understand the difference between Bourbon, Scotch and other styles of whiskey.

Love to give a shout out to way back in 2000, when I went to Scotland to learn how to malt some barley, and where I ran into the legendary distiller Jim McEwan. Jim encouraged me to follow my mission saying, “You got to do it”. Speaking with him made distilling a calling! I knew then that I just had to embrace my destiny.

The future seems bright enough. It is delicious!