The San Diego County Fair’s Distilled Spirit and Cocktail Festival included a Best of Class award for San Diego Distillery’s peated whiskey.
The product of the Spring Valley company initially won first place in the Peated Whiskey class which advanced it to the Best of Class competition for the American Whiskey – Single Malt division.
“I’d put it next to anything of that style,” said Trent Tilton, who owns San Diego Distillery along with his wife, Maria.
The whiskey which won Best of Class was approximately 2 1/2 years old as it was barreled in December 2016.
San Diego Distillery began barreling peated whiskey in 2015 and opened in 2016.
Tilton is originally from the University City area of San Diego, but he and his wife now live in La Mesa and they chose Spring Valley to locate their distillery because it was in the unincorporated part of the county.
“The county’s very good in rules and regulations for owning a distillery,” he said.
San Diego Distillery first entered the county fair competition in 2018 and also won Best of Class for last year’s peated whiskey entry.
“We do not enter a lot of competitions,” Tilton said.
Events at which the public rather than official judges evaluate the whiskey have proven positive for San Diego Distillery.
“We’ve done a lot of tasting events and a lot of festivals that are related to peated whiskey and ours always does a good showing,” Tilton said.
The peated whiskey is between 110 and 120 proof.
“We only ever bottle it at cask strength,” Tilton said. “That’s how we like it.”
The peated whiskey was also given a gold medal. San Diego Distillery also entered a rice whiskey which obtained a silver medal.
“Fine with that,” Tilton said of the silver medal. “It’s the first time we’ve ever entered it in anything.”
Tilton noted that the competition judges might not have previously tried rice whiskey. San Diego Distillery is one of approximately ten distilleries worldwide which produce rice whiskey. “They’re not very common,” Tilton said.
