LOCH & UNION DISTILLING
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of American Canyon, California Written and photographed by Devon Trevathan
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t first glance, Scotland and California’s Napa Valley may not seem to have much in common. However, both have conditions suited to producing certain styles of alcohol, and Loch & Union Distilling in American Canyon, California, is hoping to be a bridge between these two famous destinations with their American single malt whiskeys that use Napa Valley wine barrels for aging. Co-founders Colin Baker and Matthew Meyer met at the London School of Economics in 2008. Not long after, Baker decided that he wanted to leave his comfortable desk job to open a distillery, and after studying at Heriot-Watt University, he roped Meyer in as director of business operations. Their story is a familiar one, but perhaps one of the more unique elements to it is the facilities’ location in American Canyon a scant 20 miles south of the heart of the Napa Valley wine region and a stone’s throw from legendary vineyards and wine barrel cooperages. “That was their kind of dream, they wanted to build a kind of Scottish style/size distillery here, and they built it here close to the Napa Valley because we have the access to barrels,” said Gian Nelson, chief distiller and winemaker at Loch & Union. Location has been a strong source of inspiration for the team at Loch & Union. Early on Meyer dictated that the production style for Loch & Union’s whiskeys would mimic that of Scotland’s in many ways, albeit with a California twist. “Our first big product that we did once we built the distillery was to make our single malt and age it in 100 percent used wine barrels from here, so we have about 400 of those barrels sitting, they’re almost four years now,” explained Nelson. He himself brings a bit of that Napa sensibility to W W W . ARTISANSPIRITMAG . C O M