George Washington's Distillery

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

George Washington's Gristmill:
In 1771, George Washington replaced a deteriorated gristmill that his father, Augustine, may have erected as early as the 1730s. The new mil ground grain from Mount Vernon and neighboring farms, and was outfitted with two pairs of millstones. In 1791, Washington installed improvements that had been recently developed and patented by Oliver Evans, of Delaware. Other structures at the site included a stone whiskey distillery, a malthouse, a cooperage, a miller's cottage, and slave quarters. Washington's mill was razed around 1850, and in 1933 the Commonwealth of Virginia built a reconstruction on the original site.

Marker Erected 2000 by Department of Historic Resources. (Marker Number E-73.)

Editor's note: The grist mill directly across the street from this marker is fully functional. During tours of the mill, guides explain each component of the process of milling grain.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Atlas Obscura website:

George Washington's Distillery
Alexandria, Virginia
The only place for a truly presidential dram.

You can still buy a bottle of small-batch whiskey at a re-creation of one of the largest whiskey distilleries of the late-18th century United States. Even better, it was owned by George Washington, the only Founding Father who, when he wasn’t building a nation, was trying to lift its spirits.

Immensely popular during its time, Washington’s distillery was located three miles from his estate in Mount Vernon. Records show that it produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey in 1799, the year of his death. It also produced such delights as peach and persimmon brandy. The distillery was destroyed in a fire in 1814, but resurrected in 2007, and today, conducts tours and whiskey tastings.

The distillery sits next to Washington’s gristmill. Ground corn and rye from the mill went to the distillery, where staff and enslaved workers mashed and cooked them in large wooden vats. The cooked mash was fermented with malted barley and put into copper stills fired by burning wood (the distillery had five of these stills). A tap running water from the stream outside cooled the gaseous alcohol and brought it back to liquid form through condensation. Then, it could then be poured straight from the barrel and imbibed.

Washington’s rye whiskey wasn’t aged, so it didn’t have the rich amber tone of typical whiskey, and the distillery maintains the tradition of unaged, clear whiskey today. (It also now makes and sells the aged kind.) The whiskey, made for sale, is produced only twice a year, so bottles of George Washington’s beloved tipple are truly collector’s items. Proceeds from sales go toward maintaining operations at Mount Vernon.

In 2017, Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia at the time, declared George Washington’s Rye Whiskey the official state spirit of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Know Before You Go
The gristmill and distillery is open April through October. Tickets are included with general admission to Mount Vernon.

George Washington’s Whiskey
The George Washington Distillery
Alexandria, Virginia
Taste the white whiskey that the United States' first president once distilled and enjoyed.

After leaving the presidency in 1797, George Washington settled into a comfortable retirement as one of the new nation’s largest producers of whiskey—if not the largest.

That wasn’t the founding father’s intention when he left office for his pastoral home of Mount Vernon in Virginia. But his newly hired plantation manager, a Scot named James Anderson, proposed a distillery after noticing that Mount Vernon had most of the necessary infrastructure (a water supply and gristmill) as well as plenty of rye, which enslaved workers planted as a cover crop.

Washington had to be talked into the enterprise, but it quickly proved successful. Within two years, his distillery was producing nearly 11,000 gallons of white whiskey that sold for over $100,000 in today’s dollars—a nice, alcohol-soaked profit. Washington’s whiskey was neither bottled nor aged, but sold in wooden barrels for 50 cents a gallon.

The distillery had a short run, as it fell into disrepair after Washington’s death in 1799 and eventually burned down. But in 2007, the distillery was resurrected, and it’s now open to the public and selling bottles of whiskey and brandy. The stills are re-creations of those used by Washington’s staff and enslaved workers, and the recipe, like in the 18th century, is 60 percent rye, 35 percent corn and 5 percent malted barley. Unlike in Washington’s day, some of the whiskey is now aged. (The unaged stuff is clear.)

Bottles of Washington’s Whiskey (and brandy) are available for purchase at the Mount Vernon distillery. They’re not sold online, and they sell out quickly. (A large distillery in 1799 is small by today’s standards.) But if you try a tipple, be careful. As Steve Bashore, Mount Vernon’s director of historic trades and current head distiller, told Food and Wine, “For some people, unaged whiskey is a little strong.”

As for Washington himself, he was known to enjoy his whiskey on occasion. But he was more of a Madeira man.

Know Before You Go
The distillery and grounds are open to the public seasonally. Note that the distillery and gristmill are located a short distance from the main Mount Vernon entrance.


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Here follows an article from the Smithsonian Magazine as written by Natasha Geiling in 2014:

Long Before Jack Daniels, George Washington Was a Whiskey Tycoon
The Founding Father spent his post-presidency years presiding over a booming alcohol business

When George Washington left the presidency in 1797, he was looking forward to some relaxation—returning to Mount Vernon and the pastoral life that had been distant during his time as president. But Washington was a man of innovation, who rarely let an opportunity slip by—and when he hired a Scottish plantation manager in 1797, Washington added another line to his resume: whiskey seller. The planation manager, James Anderson, had immigrated to Virginia in the early 1790s—noticed a missed opportunity at the estate: the abundance of crops, combined with Washington's state-of-the-art gristmill and abundant water supply could be used to make whiskey. And it wasn't just the abundance of crops, but the type. Washington, to help foster healthy soil, planted a lot of rye as a cover crop. Rye wasn't high on the list of delicious, edible grains, but Anderson didn't think it should go to waste—instead, he wanted to turn it into whiskey.

Washington was, at first, hesitant to jump into a new business venture—after all, at 65 years old, he had wanted to spend his retired years in relative peace, but after hearing Anderson's proposal, as well as corresponding with a friend who was involved in the rum business, Washington acquiesced. That winter, Anderson began distilling in the estate's cooperage, using just two stills (pots used for distillation). The first distilling was so successful that Washington approved plans for construction of a full-fledged distillery, complete with five stills. The distillery finished construction in 1798, and by 1799, it was the largest whiskey distillery in the country. That year, the distillery produced 11,000 gallons of clear, un-aged whiskey, which Washington sold for a total of $1,800 ($120,000 by today's standards).

So why isn't "whiskey businessman" a moniker more readily associated with Washington? Partly because, for nearly two centuries, the distillery was reduced to little more than a foundation. When Washington died in 1799, he left the distillery to his nephew Lawrence Lewis, who lacked the shrewd business mind of Washington. Lewis wasn't nearly as successful in the distilling business, and when a fire burned the distillery to the ground in 1814, it wasn't rebuilt. The state of Virginia purchased the site in the early 1930s, and planned to reconstruct the distillery, but only managed to rebuild the gristmill and miller's cottage—mostly because the pressures of Prohibition and the Depression didn't encourage the rebuilding of the distillery.

In 1997, archaeologists surveying the area discovered the foundation of the original distillery, and set out to reconstruct the building based on its original design. After securing key funding from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) in 2001, a group of archaeologists, historians and distillers looked deeper into the distillery's past: What role did it play on the estate? What role did it play in 18th-century America? They carefully searched records for hints about how the distillery functioned on an industrial level, making note of the number of stills used by Anderson, for example, to make the whiskey. Esther White, director of archaeology with the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, helped lead the reconstruction. By 2007, the distillery was open to the public.

But the reconstructed distillery is more than a static homage to Washington's business-savvy: it's a fully-functioning distillery in its own right. Each year, Steve Bashore, manager of historic trades at Mount Vernon, leads a small team in distilling whiskey exactly as Anderson and others did in the original distillery. They've been doing distillations twice a year (once in March, another roughly around November) since 2009, and have been selling the whiskey to visitors (the first rye whiskey sold from the distillery sold out in two hours).

Like Washington's original recipe, the whiskey they are making is predominately rye, with 65 percent of the mash composed of rye grain, 35 percent corn, and 5 percent malted barley. The grains are ground in the gristmill, then added to barrels in the distillery along with 110 gallons of boiling water. On the second day of the process, the barley is added, which converts the grains' starches into sugars. On the third day of the process, yeast is added, which eats the sugars and turns them into alcohol. Then, the mash is poured into the copper stills (which we recreated from a surviving 18th-century still displayed in the distillery's museum, on the building's second floor), where it is heated by a wood fire. As the mash mixture heats, alcohol vapor rises to the top and is funneled into a coiled pipe, which is cooled by water from a nearby creek. As the alcohol vapor cools, it condenses back to liquid, which flows out of the barrel into a container.

In Washington's day, this whiskey would be sold clear and unaged—but today (because there's a market for it), Bashore and Mount Vernon will age some of the whiskey that they distill.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Clio Foundation website as written by Daniel Newcomer:

Introduction
In the years following George Washington’s inheritance of his Mount Vernon Estate, he built a large stone gristmill on the property. At the suggestion of his farm manager, James Anderson, Washington also built a whiskey distillery next to the gristmill. When it was completed in 1797, Washington’s distillery was the largest in the United States. Although the original building was destroyed in the 1850s, the Mount Vernon Ladies Association have reconstructed the building. Nowadays, visitors can come to the Distillery and Gristmill and watch it come to life. With guided tours and costumed interpreters, one of the highlights of this historic site is its fully functional distillery. In fact, Washington’s distillery is the only site in America where visitors can witness the 18th-century process from seed to barrel. The Distillery and Gristmill are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Backstory and Context
History of Washington’s Distillery and Gristmill
George Washington’s Distillery and Gristmill symbolize the time in America’s history when the young nation was transitioning from a colonial market into a nationalized economy. For example, in early 1770 and 1771, George Washington wanted to not only move his plantation to self-sufficiency but also start selling flour to local and export markets. Also, Washington wanted to move away from tobacco plants and instead focus on wheat. As such, in 1771, he built the large gristmill. The mill was capable of producing upwards of 5,000 to 8,000 pounds of flour and cornmeal every day. Washington made several improvements for the gristmill over the decades since its construction. The last of these improvements involved the purchase the newly patented automated milling system, invented by Oliver Evans.

While managing Washington’s farm, James Anderson urged Washington to produce whiskey at the site as a new source of revenue. Washington was hesitant in terms of the economic venture but trusted Anderson’s history in the distilling industry in Scotland before immigrating to America. Thus, in early 1797, Anderson purchased to stills and set up the small operation next to the gristmill. The initial 600 gallons of whiskey proved profitable, and so Washington agreed to a larger distillery over the 1797-78 winter. By the year of Washington’s death in 1799, the distillery produced nearly 11,000 gallons of whiskey, which Washington sold for $1,800 (equivalent to about $120,000 today). Washington’s whiskey distillery was the largest in America.1

George Washington’s Whiskey
Today, workers at Mount Vernon use Washington’s distillery to make whiskey just as Anderson and his team did in the 18th century. Moreover, the try to keep to Washington’s original rye recipe as much as possible. The grains for the whiskey (rye grain and corn, mostly), are ground in the gristmill and then added to barrels in the distillery. Malted barley is added afterward. About 1,000 bottles of unaged rye generally go on sale at Mount Vernon in mid-May.


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Here follows a history of the gristmill from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

George Washington's Gristmill was part of the original Mount Vernon plantation, constructed during the lifetime of the United States' first president. The original structure was destroyed about 1850. The Commonwealth of Virginia and the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association have reconstructed the gristmill and the adjacent distillery. The reconstructed buildings are located at their original site three miles (4.8 km) west of the Mount Vernon mansion near Woodlawn Plantation in the Mont Vernon area of Fairfax County. Because the reconstructed buildings embody the distinctive characteristics of late eighteenth century methods of production and are of importance to the history of Virginia, the site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places despite the fact that the buildings are not original.

History:
George Washington inherited Mount Vernon in 1754. In 1771, he erected a large stone gristmill on the plantation to replace a mill his father had built in the 1730s. The new mill was located three miles (5 km) west of Mount Vernon on Dogue Run Creek. It was used to produce flour and cornmeal for the plantation as well as high-quality flour for export to the West Indies, England, and continental Europe. Washington also built a house for the miller and a cooperage to supply barrels for the mill, and later, the distillery operation. The mill was powered by a large water wheel. To ensure a steady power supply, water was diverted from Piney Branch into Dogue Run Creek above the mill's headrace. The additional waterflow significantly increased the mill's production capacity. In 1791, Washington automated his mill using technology developed and patented by Oliver Evans of Delaware. Evans was personally acquainted with the mill and had repaired some of its works.

Once the gristmill was well established, Washington's farm manager, James Anderson, suggested building a whiskey distillery adjacent to the mill. When it was completed in 1797, the distillery was the largest in America. By 1799 it had become one of Washington's most successful enterprises, producing 11,000 gallons of whiskey per year. A variety of whiskeys were produced at the site along with brandy and vinegar. The most common whiskey recipe used 60% rye, 35% corn, and 5% malted barley. Smaller amounts of rye whiskey were distilled up to four times and were more expensive. Some whiskey was also flavored with cinnamon. When rye was scarce the distillery used wheat. Apple, peach and persimmon brandies were also produced. The whiskey was marketed in Alexandria, Virginia, or shipped directly from Mount Vernon's dock on the Potomac River. The distillery process produced a significant waste stream, which was fed to 150 cattle and 30 hogs that were kept at the site.

After Washington's death in December 1799, the gristmill and distillery passed to his nephew, Lawrence Lewis. In 1808, he rented the site to Alexandria merchant James Douglass. The last known reference to the distillery business is an 1808 whiskey advertisement. The distillery building burned in 1814; this is documented by a small insurance payment made to Lewis that year. In 1848, Lewis’ grandson sold the gristmill property along with Woodlawn Plantation. That is the last record of the original buildings. Local oral history suggests that the mill was quite run-down by 1848, and it was razed around 1850.

Reconstruction of George Washington's 1771 gristmill:
In 1932, the Commonwealth of Virginia purchased 6.65 acres (26,900 m2) around the old mill site. The state initiated an archaeological field survey of the site with the goal of reconstructing the gristmill, distillery and other Washington-era buildings. The gristmill and miller's house were reconstructed in 1933. Shortly after their completion, the site was opened as a state park. However, by 1936 the state had stopped maintaining the park. Sometime around 1940 a local chapter of the Future Farmers of America began caring for the grounds, but public use of the park was sparse. The state resumed responsibility for the park in 1962. Over the next two decades, several additional structures were built on the site.

In 1997, Virginia conveyed the property to the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association which owns and operates the Mount Vernon estate. From 1997 to 2002 the main structures underwent major renovation, including rebuilding the internal millworkings, renovation of the miller's house, restoration of the millraces, and construction of new brick pathways throughout the site. Because the property embodies the distinctive characteristics of late eighteenth-century production methods, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. In 1999, archaeologists began to investigate the distillery site; after five years of study the distillery reconstruction began. It was completed and opened to the public in 2007. This $2.1 million project was funded by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America.

Historic site:
George Washington's Gristmill is located on 6.65 acres (2.69 ha) approximately three miles west of the Mount Vernon estate. It is situated on an eastward sloping lot, bounded by Dogue Run Creek to the south, pasture land belonging to the National Trust for Historic Preservation to the west, the park's paved parking lot and a housing subdivision to the north, and a wooded lot to the east. The property is bisected by Virginia Route 235. All the site's historic elements (except one archeological site) are located on the east side of the highway. This includes the gristmill, distillery, miller's house and several archeological sites. The west side of the property contains one archaeological site and three non-contributing structures.

Gristmill:
The gristmill is a Colonial Revival-style stone building that was constructed in 1933 based on archaeological and documentary evidence. Its rectangular footprint measures 37 feet (11 m) by 50 feet (15 m). Its foundation is built into a hillside, with two and one half stories above ground on the north side and three and one half stories on the south side. It is a masonry structure built with sandstone arranged in a random pattern with stone lintels and sills. The mill's roof is covered with wooden shingles. On the south side of the building is a vertical-board door on the first floor; there is an identical door on the ground floor on the north side as well. Both have stone landings. The millrace enters the mill on the north side and exits at ground level on the south side.

The internal millworkings and structural members installed during the 1933 reconstruction were taken from an 1818 gristmill located near Front Royal, Virginia. Some of the structural members from Front Royal mill are still in the building; however, most of the millworkings were replaced between 1997 and 2002. The interior has exposed masonry walls with heavy timber framing. The flooring throughout the building is random-width pine. A masonry fireplace is in the southwest corner of the first floor. The grinding platform is accessed from the second floor. The third level is one large room with rolling screens and other processing equipment. A staircase in the western half of the structure runs from the first floor to attic. The mill's two grinding stones are powered by a pitch-back water wheel. The mill machinery is enclosed in a hurst frame, built from heavy oak and pine beams. Its frame is built directly on the mill's foundation, and is not connected to the walls. This protects the structure from the machinery's potentially damaging vibrations. The hurst frame occupies the eastern half of the first two levels.

Miller’s house:
The miller's house was built at the same time as the gristmill; the reconstructed house was sited on its original site. The design for the building is based on archaeological evidence and a mid-nineteenth-century drawing. Its wood-frame structure rests on a stone foundation. It is clad with beaded weatherboard. In 1970, a 1+1⁄2-story addition doubled the size of the building. The interior of the original section is laid out in a hall-parlor configuration with two major rooms and a small bathroom. This area is used as a gift shop. The new section of the house includes a kitchen, pantry, and additional retail space for the gift ship.

Reconstruction of George Washington's 1797 distillery:
Because there is no surviving example of eighteenth century distillery, the reconstruction of Washington's distillery required extensive archeological and documentary investigation before an authentic structure could be built. The archeological study began in 1997 and lasted until 2006. During the excavation archaeologists uncovered the distillery's stone foundation which is some thirty-six inches (900 mm) thick. Some of the original foundation stones are over twenty-four inches (600 mm) in diameter. The initial course of the sandstone superstructure was intact along the southern foundation, and was two feet (600 mm) thick. They discovered the location of five stills and boilers, and found many objects used in the distilling process along with fragments of domestic items such as teacups, drinking glasses and buttons.

The distillery was reconstructed in 2007. To ensure an authentic reconstruction the wood was finished by hand and the construction used hand-made nails and hardware. There were some compromises necessary to comply with modern building codes and safety requirements. For example, the original structure's 30 by 75 foot (9 m by 23 m) footprint was extended by 15 feet (4.6 m) in order to house an elevator and modern staircase for public use.

The distillery has two floors with five large copper stills, mash tubs and a boiler that demonstrate the eighteenth-century distilling process. The building includes a storage cellar for whiskey barrels, an office, and two bedrooms where the site manager and his assistant would have lived. The building's floors are made of three different materials. A stone floor is used in the mashing area to reduce vibrations that can disturb the fermentation process. Around the boilers and under the staircase is a brick floor, and an elevated wooden floor around the stills. Wooden planks are used for flooring in the rest of the building.

The original distillery was built to specifications provided by James Anderson, originally from Inverkeithing in Scotland and much of the correspondence between Washington and Anderson is recorded in the Library of Congress. The concept of building a distillery and entering into whisky production was suggested directly by Anderson and Washington's skepticism was notable in many letters. In the end, on advice from friends, he agreed to proceed with the plans as outlined by Anderson. The process is based on the Scottish distillation of Scotch Whisky but differs in that the spirit was not aged as Scotch is today. As a result, the Whisky tastes quite different.

Access:
The gristmill, distillery, and gift shop are open to the public from April through October. They are located approximately three miles west of Mount Vernon's main gate on Virginia Route 235. Tickets to tour the gristmill and distillery are available at Mount Vernon and the gristmill's gift shop. The tickets can be combined admission to Mount Vernon or purchased separately. Public transportation is available between Mount Vernon and the gristmill.