Early Scottish settlers in the South tried their best to replicate the whisky of their homeland, to little avail. But not all was lost: If the barley needed for whisky had grown easily here, explains Gareth H. Moore, the CEO of Virginia Distillery Company, “we’d never have gotten bourbon.”
Those past failures didn’t discourage Moore and his team, however. Virginia Distillery launched in 2011 with the goal of becoming a field-to-bottle producer of single malts of a quality that could compete with the best Scotch.
That drive began with George Moore, Gareth’s father. An Irish American entrepreneur, Moore found financial success in information tech in Washington, D.C. He also adored Scotch, collected single malts, and saw no reason that with the right mix of expertise, determination,
