Tasting notes

nose

candied lemon peel, apricot and fresh ginger with gingersnap, cocoa, pear and a little plum sauce

palate

gingerbread and walnut, cinnamon and vanilla icing, with caramel and a few dark berries

finish

medium length; it darkens to chocolate biscuit, molasses and dark chocolate, with honey, rooibos and baking spice trailing off

Mash bill

100% malted barley. The barley is grown and malted in the Midwest and milled in Lovingston on a 1920s Boby mill. The ginger and spice in this bottling come from the stout barrels used to finish it, not from the mash.

Awards

• Gold — Beverage Testing Institute 2024

Why it's craft

This release belongs to The Brewer's Coalition, a Virginia Distillery Co. series that finishes its single malt in barrels from American breweries; here the barrels held Hardywood Gingerbread Stout, the Richmond brewery's holiday stout. Only twenty barrels were used, after more than five years of ex-bourbon aging in Lovingston. The distillery makes the malt itself, double distilling it on copper pot stills built in Scotland.