Episode 258: Virginia Distillery Company with Amanda Beckwith Show Notes
Virginia Distillery Company with Amanda Beckwith: Revisiting the Whiskey, Building a House Style, and Eleven Years of Learning
This episode was a little more personal for me than most.
I first tried Virginia Distillery Company (VDC) around 2018 at a Flaviar event in New York. The pour was the Cider Cask whiskey and, at the time, I didn’t like it. There was a note that hit me wrong, and for years afterward I carried around the fairly simple assumption that VDC just wasn’t for me. Over the last couple of years, though, Lost Lantern forced me to reconsider that. I tasted Virginia Distillery Company whiskey again through a few of their blends and found myself enjoying it, sometimes pretty clearly identifying the VDC component as one of the things I liked. Either the whiskey had changed, my palate had changed, or, far more likely, both had.
So when the chance came to sit down with Amanda Beckwith, Director of Liquid Development and Lead Blender at Virginia Distillery Company, I wanted to revisit the distillery properly rather than let an eight-year-old tasting note keep making decisions for me. By the time we recorded, I’d already tasted enough of the current whiskey to know revisiting VDC was overdue.
From Nonprofits to the Blending Room
Virginia Distillery Company was founded by the late Dr. George G. Moore around the idea that world-class single malt could be made in Virginia. Amanda joined in 2015 from the nonprofit world, originally to build the guest experience and visitor program at the new distillery in Lovingston.
She wasn’t hired with blending in mind. That came gradually, helped along by being the person who kept volunteering to learn more. She was around when the stills first came online, pitched yeast, filled some of the early barrels, traveled to Kentucky and Scotland to learn production, and absorbed as much information as she could from the distillery’s early mentors.
Nancy Fraley became especially influential. Amanda first met her through sensory training, where Nancy kept asking the relatively quiet new employee what she thought of the samples. Eventually Nancy told her she had a very good palate, then took the extra step of telling VDC leadership the same thing. What followed became a mentorship that took Amanda deeper into blending, brandy production, Cognac and Armagnac, sensory chemistry, and the sort of practical knowledge that accumulates through years of tasting rather than through a single course or book. Remember this for a bit later…
Amanda talks about Nancy recognizing that she was willing to keep learning rather than reach some imaginary stage where she could declare herself finished. Eleven years later, that still feels like the thread running through how she works.
We also spend a few minutes on the Virginia Spirits Museum, which grew out of Amanda’s original work building the visitor experience. The first version opened in 2015 and included local distilling artifacts and stories from Nelson County, including illicit stills once hidden around the area. It has since expanded into a broader look at Virginia spirits history, a useful reminder that VDC’s single malt story is relatively new while Virginia distilling certainly is not.
Orchard Fruit, Spice, and Finding the VDC House Style
Virginia Distillery Company has now been distilling long enough that Amanda and the production team can talk about a recognizable house style rather than simply what they hope the spirit will become. Amanda describes it as orchard fruit and spice, with the yeast program starting that profile before the whiskey ever reaches oak.
They still use two yeast strains for VDC’s own distillate, even if the precise strains remain one of the few details the team keeps close. Fermentation is generally around 72 hours, with green apple and pear moving toward ripe red apple, banana, and brighter tropical fruit. The washbacks are jacketed, giving the team the ability to adjust temperature and yeast activity rather than simply letting fermentation run wherever it wants to go.
Amanda remains involved when the distillers are considering yeast trials, experimental cuts, or other production changes, even though blending and liquid development are now the center of her job. After all, the choices made before the barrel determine what she has available to work with years later.
The barley remains two-row pale distillers malt, with different approved varieties coming through depending on availability and specification. Winter barley has been tested, but as of our conversation it hasn’t made its way into VDC barrels.
The new make itself remains fairly close to the profile developed in those early years. Jim Swan’s influence became particularly strong once the conversation moved into maturation, but Amanda credits him less with handing the team a recipe than with teaching them how to think through problems. Given how much Virginia’s climate, casks, and spirit have taught the team since then, that was probably the more useful gift. Learn the skill, not the specialty.
Courage & Conviction and VDC
One of the things I wanted to clarify with Amanda was how Courage & Conviction and the Virginia Distillery Company line now relate to one another. The simplest dividing line is primary maturation versus finishing, although there’s plenty of overlap once you start digging into individual releases.
Courage & Conviction was conceived as an elegant expression of VDC’s single malt and maturation program, with the flagship originally bringing together ex-bourbon, sherry, and Cuvée casks (see below for a more in-depth description). Yamazaki 12 was an inspiration for Amanda, though not because she was trying to reproduce its flavor. She liked the idea of a whiskey with depth and complexity that could continue opening in the glass without needing to overpower the drinker on the first sip.
The VDC line gives her more room to play. Earlier releases began with Scotch malt whiskey brought into Virginia and finished there, then gradually incorporated more VDC distillate until the transition to their own American single malt was complete. Today the line can lean harder into finishing, collaborations, and flavors that show themselves a little earlier.
That also changes how Amanda approaches the drinker. Courage & Conviction can take its time unfolding, while VDC can afford more intensity up front, with enough underneath for someone who wants to sit with the glass for a while.
There’s a nice, if awkward, full-circle element here for me too. The Cider Cask I disliked in 2018 would have been built largely from Scottish malt whiskey at that time. The current release is an entirely different whiskey, using VDC’s own single malt with Calvados, Laird’s apple brandy, and both sweet and dry cider casks in the mix. At some stage I clearly need to put the old tasting note and the current bottle in the same room.
Cuvée Casks, Virginia Weather, and Knowing Where the Barrel Lives
Casks are probably where Amanda gets deepest into the weeds, which is saying something.
Virginia Distillery Company has worked with Jim Swan’s STR concept from early on, though the distillery generally uses the term Cuvée for its own red-wine casks. Amanda is careful about the terminology because wine casks are toasted rather than charred during their original life. The process involves shaving the interior, retoasting it, and then applying its first very light char rather than “re-charring” a barrel that had already been charred.
She spent years running trials with different char levels, sampling the results every six months and slowly building a clearer picture of what each treatment would do. Some of the cooperage people she now works with in Spain and Portugal were directly involved with Swan, giving her access to the thinking behind the process rather than simply an acronym to put on a label.
The first French oak STR casks have now been dumped as well. They were still sitting in a blending tank when we recorded, and Amanda expects them to begin appearing as a small component of future Cuvée releases.
VDC has now filled more than 10,000 casks, and the warehouses are mapped closely enough that Amanda can use individual areas for different purposes. Some pockets mature more slowly because of humidity, airflow, or reduced radiant heat, which can be useful for whiskey she wants to carry toward ten or twelve years. More dynamic areas can speed up experimental work when she wants an answer sooner.
The barrels aren’t routinely rotated. Once Amanda understands how a particular warehouse location behaves, keeping a cask there gives her another piece of information in a climate where whiskey can behave quite differently from one season to another. The newer Barrel Sense data is giving the team an even sharper picture, right down to identifying areas where leaks are more likely or maturation tends to slow.
Barrel Boot Camp and the Sensory Side
Amanda has a period in spring and fall that she calls barrel boot camp, when Virginia’s weather gives her a particularly useful window to make final decisions on casks she has been following throughout the year. She was kind enough to actually take time away during this period for the interview.
She already knows roughly what she needs for upcoming blends. Barrel boot camp is the final pass: taste through the candidates, confirm that they’re showing the way she expects, pull samples from anything that needs deeper attention, and let the rest wait if they aren’t there yet. If Amanda’s palate is off from allergies or illness, the schedule moves rather than forcing a decision because the calendar says it’s time.
Her sensory panel has become more formal over the years too. What began with broader team tastings, Whiskey Wednesdays, and Fun Fridays gradually revealed which people consistently picked up particular characteristics. Those people became part of the core sensory group, where showing up without strong food, perfume, or other palate interference is part of the job. That team is now around five people.
That said, Amanda still keeps the broader tastings around because she doesn’t want sensory work to become a private club. There’s simply a difference between letting everyone taste and asking a smaller group to help make production decisions.
Tea also plays a surprisingly large role. Amanda has a collection numbering in the hundreds (putting my wife and I’s collection to shame) and sometimes starts sensory sessions with gongfu tea to slow everyone down and recalibrate the palate. She’ll use tea personally when she needs a reset, or pair it with whiskey simply to see where the aromas meet.
She also leaves empty whiskey glasses sitting around overnight to revisit what the brandy world calls the fond de verre, the aromas that remain once the liquid is gone. A stray glass sitting on a cask has apparently become less of a mystery around the distillery and more of a reliable sign that Amanda was there.
Cigar Blend First Cut
One of the newest VDC releases is also one of the most personal things Amanda has built. Cigar Blend First Cut grew partly from her years working with Nancy Fraley and studying brandy in Cognac and Armagnac, where the cigar-blend tradition goes back much further than its recent popularity in American whiskey.
Amanda doesn’t smoke cigars herself, so developing the whiskey meant sitting down with people who do, watching how different cigars changed the experience of the whiskey, and paying attention to what survived the smoke, what disappeared, and what could provide contrast. She spent around two years working through it.
The components include Armagnac and Cognac cask influence, Port, Spanish oak and sherry, along with a subtle contribution from Islay casks. The smoke is deliberately restrained. Amanda had resisted putting those casks into a commercial release for years because American single malt already has enough trouble with people assuming “single malt” automatically means “peated Scotch.” A cigar blend finally gave the smoke a reason to be there. This is the first release containing those Islay casks, even in the smallest contribution, after Amanda being asked for years if 1) they existed and 2) when they would be used.
She also designed the whiskey to work with dark chocolate, which gives non-cigar smokers another route into what she was trying to build. The larger aim was texture, fruit, spice, smoke, and enough weight to stand alongside another strong flavor without losing the barley underneath it.
Amanda brought the nearly finished blend to Nancy, fully prepared for the possibility that her mentor might dislike it. Nancy responded by grabbing her pipe, which is probably about as concise an endorsement as she could have hoped for.
American Single Malt, Eleven Years Later
Amanda and VDC have also spent a large part of the last decade explaining American single malt, first while the category was fighting for federal recognition and now while producers are trying to teach people what that recognition actually covers.
VDC was a founding member of the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission, and Amanda remembers the long stretch between the regulatory push, public comments, and the standard finally becoming reality. The definition now exists, but the education side is nowhere near finished. She still regularly hears people assume single malt must be smoky or that bourbon can only come from Kentucky.
The American Single Malt Academy, launched in 2023, is VDC’s own contribution to closing some of those gaps. It’s a free online course covering production, global single malt styles, and the American category, complete with quizzes and a certificate for anyone who makes it through. Amanda would like to build a more technical second level eventually, potentially involving more distillers and deeper production comparisons.
That educational push is increasingly international too. VDC now sells into several overseas markets, and Amanda gets particular enjoyment out of drinking Virginia single malt in places with much longer-established whiskey cultures. She says consumers in the UK and Europe are, on average, currently more familiar with American single malt than American drinkers are, which leaves us with a little catching up to do.
Coming Back to Virginia Distillery Company
I came into this conversation with an old opinion of Virginia Distillery Company that I already knew needed updating. By the time we recorded, I’d tasted enough newer whiskey to know that was true, but talking with Amanda filled in the part the glass alone couldn’t.
VDC has had eleven years to understand its stills, its yeast, its warehouses, and its Virginia climate. Amanda has had those same eleven years to go from opening a visitor center to becoming the person deciding when thousands of casks are ready, what they should become, and how they fit into several increasingly distinct whiskey families. Both have evolved considerably from where they were when I first encountered the brand.
When I asked Amanda about legacy, she didn’t talk about becoming the person with all the answers. She wants to remain available, keep teaching and learning, and help make single malt warmer and more accessible to people who haven’t found their way into it yet. That fits someone whose whiskey career started because she saw a new distillery nearby, sent in a résumé without knowing exactly what job she wanted, and kept finding the next thing to learn once she got there.
As for me, I think the 2018 tasting note has officially served its time.
Virginia Distillery Company
Website: Virginia Distillery Company
Courage & Conviction: Courage & Conviction
Instagram: @vadistillery
Facebook: Virginia Distillery Co.
LinkedIn: Virginia Distillery Company
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