Wigle Whiskey bringing back historical spirits
Wigle Whiskey co-owner Meredeth Grelli explains how Scottish immigrants brought their stills and German immigrants brought rye grain, a collaboration which brought about Pittsburgh-style whiskey.
Alas, no whiskey allowed in a library, but bitters, used in cocktails and baking, were on hand for smelling.
Wigle Whiskey co-owner Meredeth Grelli quit her job as a brand manager to start what was then in 2009 an illegal business: producing rye whiskey in Pittsburgh.
The company name comes from Phillip Wigle, who punched a tax collector who came to the region to collect the spirits tax enacted by Alexander Hamilton in 1791. Wigle would also burn the man’s house down.
“It was Wigle’s passion we identified with to bring back ‘Monongahela Mash,’ or the Pittsburgh-style rye whiskey that had been gone since prohibition,” said Grelli, who talked to about 70 people at the Peters Township Library Oct. 30.
“Before prohibition, there were 4,000 registered distilleries and they all had their own version of rye-barely whiskey that was big, bold and spicy…now in America, a majority of whiskey is a corn mash that’s slightly sweeter. We’re here to offer taste diversity and bring back what Pittsburgh was known for before steel, and that’s whiskey… Allegheny County produced half a barrel’s worth of whiskey for every man, woman and child in America by 1850.”
Grelli’s business in the Strip District of Pittsburgh is among at least four distilleries operating in the region, including Maggie’s Farm Rum, Stay Tuned Distillery, and Boyd and Bair Vodka. Grelli bought and gutted a machine shop at 24th and Smallman Street where large stills sat unused as she and others lobbied the state legislature for two years until December 2011, when Governor Corbett signed a law allowing private distilleries to batch and distribute directly to consumers.
“We can get our spirits in state stores, but UPS and FedEx still refuse to carry for us, and that’s frustrating since they ship wine and carry for the state store system,” Grelli said.
“The distillery business is where craft beer was 20 years ago. We’re just now getting out of the dark when it comes to production laws, and now you’re starting to see local distilleries crop up to bring back history and flavors we haven’t tasted since well before 1900.”
Those flavors include experimental ones, like an apple whiskey the company is producing this year in partnership with Soergels Orchards and Chatham University, the latter with whom they’ve developed a new flavor each year as part of a graduate student program.
“We’re always looking to produce new flavors, and part of that process are our consumer groups who taste each batch-good and bad-all the way to the final, best batch we’ll produce,” Grelli said, “and they also put on the labels. So that’s why the labels are crooked.”
Part of the consistency of its regular rye-barley whiskey is using new, white American oak barrels to age the whiskey in.
“American whiskeys in general tend to be younger, or aged less, because we’re all required to use new barrels. It’s part of the identity laws in the states. Whereas in Irish or Scotch whiskeys, they reuse barrels, which requires longer aging.”
For anyone looking to start a distillery, Grelli offered some tongue-in-cheek advice.
“Name it Smith distillery or something, because every Wigle has come out of the woodwork and even if they don’t like whiskey, they’ll buy a t-shirt.”