The A. Smith Bowman Distillery is a distillery that was originally based on the Bowman family's 7,200-acre Sunset Hills Farm in Fairfax County, Virginia,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
, in what later became the planned community of
Reston Reston may refer to:
Places
* Reston, Florida, an unincorporated community in Florida, United States
* Reston, Lincolnshire, a parish in England
* Reston, Manitoba, a small community in southwestern Manitoba, Canada
* Reston Scar, a fell in Cumbria ...
. The distillery was founded in 1934 on the day after the end of
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
, by Abram Smith Bowman and his sons, Abram Smith, Jr., and DeLong.
From the time of its founding until the 1950s, it was the only legal whiskey distillery in the
Commonwealth of Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
The A. Smith Bowman distillery business was purchased in 2003 by the Sazerac Company,Straub, Bill, Bourbon Review: Virginia Gentleman Small Batch , ''Modern Thirst'', June 9, 2014. which is a large privately owned liquor producer with headquarters in
Virginia Gentleman bourbon brand, other bourbons, and other products including a vodka called "Deep Run" and a gin called "Sunset Hills".
In particular, it also produces bourbon brands named after the Bowman family of Virginia/Kentucky pioneers, including:
* Bowman Brothers Small Batch bourbon, named after the pioneer Bowman brothers, who were sometimes called the " Four Centaurs of Cedar Creek"Bowman Brothers Pioneer Spirit Virginia Straight Bourbon Whiskey , ''Proof66'', access date August 2014.
* Abraham Bowman bourbon, named after Colonel Abraham Bowman (1749–1837)
* George Bowman rum, named after George Bowman (1699–1768)
* John J. Bowman Single Barrel bourbon, named after Colonel John Bowman (1738–1784)
*Mary Hite Bowman Caramel Bourbon Cream Liqueur, named after the mother of the Bowman brothers.
Historic building
The building in which the distillery originally operated was constructed circa 1892 under the guidance of Dr. C.A. Max Wiehle, a physician from
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
who retired from practice at the age of 41 and tried to establish a town and farming community known as Wiehle on 3,228 acres of land he purchased in 1882. The first floor served as the Wiehle town hall, and the second floor housed the Wiehle Methodist Episcopal church. The building originally featured an 80 lb bell and a steeple, which were later removed to satisfy community concerns over having a distillery with the appearance of a church. The movement to build the town foundered after the death of Dr. Wiehle from pneumonia in 1901, and the building ceased to serve as a town hall in 1909. The church had moved elsewhere in 1907. For a time, the building then became a single-family residence and general store, until purchased by Abram Smith Bowman in 1927 as part of a 4,000-acre parcel called Sunset Hills. Bowman would later make an additional 3,240-acre purchase of what was known as the Dunn Tract in 1947 – creating the largest privately owned property in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, which would remain so until nearly all of the land was sold to a real estate company in 1960. After a brief transitional ownership by the real estate company, a 60-acre area containing the distillery was sold back to Bowman's sons Abram Smith, Jr., and Delong.
Bowman, born in Mercer County, Kentucky in 1868, established a distillery in 1934 on the day after
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
was repealed, and the building originally served as the warehouse of the distillery. The first bourbon produced by the distillery was shipped from the warehouse in 1937. Between 1934 and some point in the 1950s, Bowman's was the only legal whiskey distillery in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...
by the
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government within the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of ...
in 1999, and has been the subject of several rezoning applications.
A proposal to construct condominiums on the site was approved September 24, 2007.
An earlier version of the proposal mentioned 8 units as new buildings (on 0.23 acres),
in addition to constructing 3 units within the historic structure,
while noting that it replaced a planned use of the structure as a cultural center (i.e., for the Greater Reston Arts Center). It is located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Old Reston Avenue and Sunset Hills Road, and has the address 1875 Old Reston Avenue, Reston, VA, 20190.