While Scotland has plenty of malting floors in its whiskey distilleries — literally, floors upon which barley is spread to germinate — the United States has exactly five. I’ve managed to visit four of ’em (still need to get to Rogue Distillery in Oregon). Each looks a little different, and has its own personality – take a look for yourself.
Copper Fox (Sperryville, VA)
At Copper Fox, the malting room actually has two malting spaces. Above, that’s Rick Wasmund standing in between the two, puckishly noting the two malting floors, North and South. “At night, they re-enact Civil War battles,” he deadpanned. “It’s a mess in morning.”
Leopold Brothers (Denver, CO)
This is their new distillery, which opened in 2014. I’m not sure if their old distillery had a malting floor. They weren’t malting when I visited – but they use their malted barley for gin and vodka, not just whiskey. It’s definitely the most spacious malting floor I’ve seen.
Check out the malting shovels – a local furniture designer made them, using oak from former whiskey barrels and bolts – no glue.
Coppersea Distillery (West Park, NY)
The photo above was taken by Scott Gordon Bleicher, for an Edible Manhattan feature I wrote about Coppersea. When I visited, they weren’t malting that day. It’s less exciting to see without the malt spread out – it just looks like an empty garage (see Leopold Brothers, above).
You can’t really see it in this photo, but they use a jagged-tooth malting rake; Christopher Williams (the gent dragging the rake above) commissioned it from a local metalsmith, using an old engraving as the prototype.
Hillrock Distillery (Ancram, NY)
Photo credit: Edible Hudson Valley. The malting floor looks more like a room in a quaint B&B than a working distillery, doesn’t it?
Rogue Spirits (Ashland, OR)
Photo credit: Rogue Spirits. Here’s hoping I get to Oregon in 2015 to see this in person and round out the collection.
Tipple Sheet 