Boozin’ Blog

Malt Advocate, a whisky magazine, has named its pick for the microdistillery of the year. Before I tell you who the honoree is, take a guess where it’s located. Scotland? Ireland? Kentucky? Nope. Nope. And Nope.

The big winner for 2008 is Penderyn Distillery in Wales. Who knew there was good whisky made in Wales? Well, besides the Welsh, I suppose.

But what’s a microdistillery? This word caught my eye because I’ve been amused to watch the rise and of a similar term – microbrew. Beginning sometime in the 80’s and then getting big in the 90’s were the now virtually unheard of microbrews. Ever wonder what happened to them? Many slipped out of existence thanks to their own success.

See, the word micro necessarily implies smallishness. At the time they were making the inescapable comparison between themselves and the evil megabrews – Bud, Miller, Coors. Everyone loves a good David and Goliath story so it was quite a lot of fun to watch the microbrews march onto stores and take up their rightful space on the shelves. It wasn’t long, though, before beer geeks were explaining to themselves and their patient loved ones that Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada weren’t really micros. To qualify as a microbrewery one had to brew X or less amount of beer. One by one beloved microbreweries were becoming micros no more but *gasp* megas!

Fortunately the Brewers Association and others started using the term craft beer and microbrew has virtually fallen out of use. However, the somewhat more ambiguous distinct of “craft” makes the lines between the former micros and the establishment beers against which they were rebelling somewhat less bright.

But how long can a term like microdistllery last? The clock is already running. One distinction of microdistillery according to Malt Advocate is that the distillery can only be ten years old or younger. In this case micro is more about age than size which is a fascinating choice. Suppose a whisky maker remains small and innovative purposefully sacrificing growth for creativity. I guess after ten years we’ll just have to call them craft distillers.

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