Presidential poison

It sounds like just the sort of thing to get the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) lawyers firing up their laptops and composing a series of increasingly threatening ‘cease and desist’ missives.

An American whisky, produced in Virginia, but claiming to be a ‘Scottish-style’ single malt? Ok, the barley was malted in Scotland and the casks were re-coopered on Speyside, but half of it was only distilled once, for heaven’s sake.

As it happens, the SWA isn’t merely sanguine about the creation of the two bottlings made at the George Washington distillery in Mount Vernon – it’s directly complicit in it.

Joining forces with American spirits industry body DISCUS, the SWA flew three Scotch luminaries – Glenmorangie’s Bill Lumsden, Cardhu’s Andy Cant and Laphroaig’s John Campbell – over to help Mount Vernon’s Dave Pickerell to create the ground-breaking spirit.

No mod cons, though. The team had to use 18th century techniques at the restored plant. ‘We didn’t measure anything – it was all just done by taste,’ Campbell told Washington’s WTOP website. ‘And, eventually, I think we came to the conclusion that what we were making wasn’t half bad.’

Transatlantic tipple: Scottish malted barley was used to make the whiskies

The venture, set to benefit charities and educational ventures, is a nod to the influence of Scot James Anderson, an experienced whisky-maker who in 1797 persuaded a reluctant Washington to build a distillery at Mount Vernon as a sideline to his milling operation.

Two years later, the plant was churning out 11,000 gallons of whiskey, was the biggest in the young nation – and even the family physician was being paid in liquid form. Livestock, including Washington’s prize hogs, were fattened on the left-over cooked mash.

The ‘new’ George Washington whisky, however, bears little resemblance to the liquid the Founding Father would have known and tasted – Washington’s recipe was 60% rye, 35% corn and 5% malted barley.

Then again, it was also shipped in cask without having to undergo the inconvenient and time-consuming process of maturation, while the SWA-approved 2015 spirit was at least aged for over three years.

After all, you have to draw the line somewhere…