A chemical engineer, a software manager and a still.

Catoctin Creek Distilling Company was founded in 2009 in Purcellville, in Loudoun County, Virginia, by the married couple Becky and Scott Harris. English Wikipedia, citing the Wall Street Journal in October 2009, says the business was started with a Small Business Administration loan.

The two founders came from outside the drinks trade. The company says Becky Harris, its chief distiller, studied chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and served three years as president of the American Craft Spirits Association, and that Scott Harris, the general manager, spent about twenty years in telecoms and government software before the distillery and now chairs the Virginia Spirits Board. Whisky Advocate gave their titles in October 2023 as president and chief distiller, and co-founder and general manager.

The name is local. The company says “Catoctin,” pronounced ka-TOCK-tin, is the name of a mountain range and of the creek that runs past the distillery towards the Potomac, and traces it, by legend, to a tribal name, “Kittocton,” said to mean “place of many deer.”

The first stills, according to English Wikipedia citing NBC News in June 2010, were a 400-litre and a 1,200-litre hybrid pot-column still made by Kothe.

Rye first, then gin and brandy.

Catoctin Creek’s core is rye whisky. Its flagship is Roundstone Rye, which Whisky Magazine reported in January 2021 was arriving in the UK in three strengths — the standard bottling, a 92-proof Distiller’s Edition and a Cask Proof — through retailers including Master of Malt and The Whisky Exchange, timed to a first “Rye January.” The magazine described it as aged in new charred white oak, from local grain and small pot stills.

Alongside Roundstone, Whisky Advocate listed in October 2023 the Rabble Rouser and Braddock Oak ryes, an unaged whisky called Mosby’s Spirit, Watershed Gin and several aged brandies made from Virginia wine grapes and other fruit, and said the whiskies and gin are made from organic ingredients. The company says its grain and fruit are local and organic.

Some releases have been collaborations or novelties. In 2021 the distillery made Ragnarök Rye with the heavy-metal band GWAR, English Wikipedia says, citing The Virginian-Pilot. The Spirits Business reported that Hot Honey Rye, released in October 2023, was the company’s first new product in five years, and in July 2025 the company announced an AppleJack made from Virginia apples.

Production has grown inside the same town. English Wikipedia, citing Leesburg Today, says the company bought the 1921 Case Building on Purcellville’s Main Street in 2012 and renovated it as its distillery, including a solar array; the company’s news page notes that the building was once a Buick dealership. In January 2021 Fred Minnick’s site reported an upgrade around a new 2,000-litre copper pot still from Specific Mechanical Systems of British Columbia, replacing a 12-year-old still, with a new mash tank and six fermenters; Scott Harris said the aim was to have enough whisky in stock for future demand.

Rye in America.

The seven brands in this group are all American whiskey names known for rye, often alongside bourbon: Sagamore Spirit, Old Overholt, Templeton, Pikesville, James E. Pepper, Willett and Catoctin Creek. They sit at very different points in the trade, from family-run distilleries to labels that belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single name can stand for a working distillery, a revived old brand or a whiskey made somewhere else and bottled under the label.

In the United States the word on the label has a legal meaning. Federal rules on spirits labelling (27 CFR 5.143) define rye whisky as whisky made from a fermented mash of at least 51 per cent rye, distilled at 160 proof or less and stored in charred new oak barrels at 125 proof or less; a whisky called “straight” must spend at least two years in those barrels. The same rules set out bourbon on the same pattern, with corn in place of rye. What the rules fix is the recipe and the barrel, not the look of the bottle, so the identity of each brand is carried by its name, its label and the place it claims.

That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its whiskey is actually distilled, aged and bottled. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its whiskey is made and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A dogwood roundel and a monogram.

For a period the company had an outside shareholder. Constellation Brands, the New York drinks group, took an undisclosed minority stake that was made public in January 2017, The Spirits Business reported; Whisky Advocate said the stake was taken in the third quarter of 2016 and disclosed in Constellation’s January earnings report. The Harrises remained majority owners, English Wikipedia says, citing the company’s announcement. On 4 October 2023 the two sides agreed to part, and the founders bought back the shares held by Constellation Brands Ventures, the group’s investment arm, at an undisclosed price, Whisky Advocate and The Spirits Business reported. The Harrises have owned the company outright since then.

The identity was brought together under one brand. The company describes its main mark as a roundel standing for the Commonwealth of Virginia, built around the flowering dogwood, the state flower, and meant as a nod to Virginia’s claim to early American whiskey, including George Washington’s rye distilling at Mount Vernon. A second mark is a monogram of intertwined script letters spelling “CCD Co,” for Catoctin Creek Distilling Company. Its website uses the line “The Virginia Rye Whisky,” marked as a trademark, and the words “Made in Virginia, USA,” and shows the American Craft Spirits Association’s craft-certified seal.

The company has leaned on that Virginia story. Its 2026 news page lists it as a commemorative partner of the state’s Virginia 250 commission, alongside new distribution partners for New York State and Texas and a refreshed tasting room that reopened on 1 July 2026.

For a design guide, Catoctin Creek shows how a small distillery can build its identity on a state flower, a monogram and a place name. Compare WhistlePig, another rye built on a farm and a state, and Rittenhouse, a rye named after a city square. For this guide we use a deep green, a dogwood cream and a rye amber with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Catoctin Creek’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.