Get to Know McCarthy’s Oregon Single Malt

McCarthy Family of Whiskeys

The Pacific Northwest has always been known for its fruit production, including apples, pears, and grapes. Its craft beer scene emerged in the 1980s and 1990s thanks to the barley production that the area was capable of sustaining, but the distilling industry in the area can trace its roots back to the 1930s, when illicit distillers used to pluck culled fruit from the Hood River and turn it into brandy. But one distiller was inspired to make a single malt.

Caitlin Bartlemay with McCarthy's portfolio

Hood River Distilling Company History

There was once a time when chucking something into the river seemed perfectly fine.  “The weird-looking fruit, ugly fruit, stuff that they (fruit growers) couldn't sell, they would just throw it in the river,” recounts Clear Creek Distillery Head Distiller Caitlin Bartlemay. “The cool part about what the original founders of Hood River Distillery were doing is they were actually pulling that fruit out of the river again. It was a very clean river. And then they were smashing it up and turning it into pear and apple brandies, so that fruit was actually getting used. Considering the elevation of the valley, transportation wise, it was probably way easier to get the fruit out of the river and let the river carry it from the top of the valley to the bottom of the valley, than it would be to get in the horse and buggy going up.”

The Hood River Distilling Company emerged from that time as a legit distillery and has remained in business. In 1985, Clear Creek Distillery was founded by Steve McCarthy on the same principles of using the locally-available fruits to produce brandies, and in 2014 Hood River purchased the Clear Creek Distillery, housing all the associated brands under the Hood River umbrella.

A Single Malt Revelation

Hood River Distiller Barrels

McCarthy, like many distillers, had a life-changing experience with single malt whiskey while traveling to Ireland and thought adding a single malt, peated whiskey to his lineup in Oregon would be a great idea.

“While he was ruminating with the stormy rain coming down in this little cabin in Ireland, he was like, you know, barley grows in Oregon, and you know there's peat in Oregon, wouldn't it be cool if we made an Oregon single malt now that I have this cutie little distillery in Portland, Oregon?” Bartleymay recounts. “That would have been in the late 80s and early 90s, which was also when craft beer was having its big boom in Portland. There were a few small craft malt houses kicking up, and he came home with this great idea, went to these malt houses, and I was like, hey, I had this great idea. What if we malted Oregon barley with Oregon peat so that I can make this beautiful Oregon single malt? And they said, cool idea, but no way, the problem being that peat reek is a big smell and flavor, and once you introduce that into your small craft malt house, there's no way that you can get it back out. Every craft beer that came out of Portland ever again would have been a smoky peaty craft beer. Unfortunately, at the time, there was no way to see out his true vision of a completely Oregon barley, Oregon peat, Oregon single malt. The next best thing was to import peated barley from Scotland.”

McCarthy's Oregon Single Malt

Caitlin Bartlemay with Crates

McCarthy’s Oregon Single Malt was first released in 1996, far before the idea of American Single Malts hit the distilling scene.

“In order to really make it ours, one, it's not distilled in a traditional pot still, it's distilled in our hybrid brandy still,” Bartlemay explains. “It's a pot still with a short column on it, so it's a single pass distillation. It's aged 100% in Oregon oak barrels, which is another first of its kind. We have looked into it as well as have asked several other independent researchers to confirm that we are actually the first American single malt to ever hit the shelves and we are.”

Today, McCarthy’s is still importing peated barley from Scotland, as that has become the brand’s identity. It’s certainly possible these days to get someone to peat Oregon barley with Oregon peat because so many other distilleries are starting to use it.

“We may or may not be thinking and working towards being able to see out Steve's original idea in Oregon peat and Oregon barley, because certainly using domestic peat is definitely a thing,” Bartlemay says. “There are a few distilleries that do, but as far as the original flagship McCarthy's, it tastes the way it does because of that imported malt. If we made it from Oregon peat and Oregon barley, it would taste different. But we would love to see that happen at some point in time.”

In American Single Malts, there are those who devise a whiskey’s identity philosophically and those who devise it through regional influences, and some, like McCarthy’s, are a hybrid of both.

“The regionality comes in in a couple of different ways,” explains Bartlemay. “One, the access to the beautiful glacier bed spring water that we have here in Oregon from Mount Hood, the water component for both brewing and the cutting portion of it definitely is a regional thing. Two, the addition of the 100% Oregon oak, we were the first ones to ever mess around with Oregon oak as an aging cask. It's a really bold finish. You get a lot deeper penetration into the wood because it has soft tyloses versus hard tyloses, which is a difference between Oregon oak and American white oak.”

The tyloses, Bartlemay explains, are the structures the tree builds to change the tree’s water supply to a support structure as the tree grows. The Oregon oak species used in McCarthy’s barrels is Garryana, the use of which has been popularized by other distilleries including Westland.

Bartlemay joined Clear Creek Distilling 13 years ago, before the advent of the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission.

“We were trying to explain what Oregon single malt was, and it was before the commission's recommendation for the standard of identity,” Bartlemay recalls. “Now explaining it is really easy. When I graduated in 2010, part of the reason I wanted to be a distiller in the first place is because it was so difficult to find any information on distilling in how all of these things were made. Now, in comparison, there are blogs and websites, and there are books, and it's so easy to just casually dive into the subject.”

McCarthy’s Oregon Single Malt Whiskey has been matured in a variety of sizes of casks but is beginning to standardize to 200 liter casks. Casks are often reused, which is in line with the proposed standard of identity for American Single Malt Whiskey.

“We experimented with a lot of different sizes, and we keep most of our old casks because it's really good in any kind of aging program to have both new and used oak,” Bartlemay says. “I often say people get distracted by what the extractives are, the color, and the extractors that you're going to get out of the barrel, and that's really only 50% of the game when you're barrel aging. There's all of those oxidative reactions that you get, the loss of the angel’s share, you're getting all that extra esterification within the chemicals on the inside, you're getting that concentration of all the good things that are left behind, and all of that stuff is happening outside of any of the extractives that you're getting from the barrel itself. There's still a lot of really amazing, wonderful aging things that can happen to a spirit, even if you're not getting as much color and as much extract as you would from a first fill cask.”

Currently, the Clear Creek Distillery is not open to the public for tours, though they do give tours to industry groups and the like. There is, however, a tasting room in Hood River, Oregon located at 304 Oak Street, Suite 3, open noon to six daily where customers can try spirits and purchase bottles and merchandise. For more information, please visit hrdspirits.com.