Spirits of the Smokies

Dave Angel hasn’t wasted any time becoming part of the Maggie Valley, North Carolina, community. In return, neighbors have welcomed Haywood County’s first distillery with open arms.

Elevated Mountain Distilling Co., located in the former Carolina Nights Dinner Theater building on Soco Road, opened Memorial Day weekend and has had hundreds of visitors a week ever since. It is the first craft distillery to open in the counties west of Buncombe.

“We opened Memorial Day weekend and started selling spirits—we’ve had a steady flow ever since. We see about 50 people a day during the week and more than 100 on Saturdays,” said Angel, the distillery’s owner. “We’re getting people from all over the place and overall the feedback has been really positive—a lot of good reviews on the products.”

The legal spirits

Visitors can purchase four different spirits at Elevated Mountain and each of them have a distinct Haywood County name and flavor—Purchase Knob Unaged Corn Whiskey (88 proof), Hurricane Creek Vodka (80 proof), Shining Rock Peach Pie Moonshine (50 proof) and Raymond Fairchild’s Root Beer White Lightning (70 proof).

Tasters have reported the products are top notch, Angel said. The taste and smoothness of the vodka and even the flavored moonshine and white lightning has surprised many people sampling the products. Angel said the secret ingredient is really no secret at all.

“What makes it so good is the water we use” right out of Campbell Creek and Jonathan Creek, which run behind the distillery, he said.

Angel’s spirits are also made using local corn, which makes it the perfect place to savor the richness of local produce.

Longtime residents know Angel isn’t the first to make whisky using local corn in Maggie Valley, but he’s probably the first to do it legally.

Many of the heirloom seeds used to grow corn in the area today are strains of those used generations ago when many area farmers were also moonshiners.

“We’ve developed a relationship with farmers—all the corn we use to make mash comes from right here in Haywood County,” Angel said.

His current supply of heirloom corn comes from the Caldwell family on Cataloochee, the Parkins Brothers Dairy in Clyde and the Woody family on Jonathan Creek.

Angel said Elevated Mountain will have a wider variety of whiskeys in the future, but people will have to be patient for the bourbon to mature.

Visitors to the distillery are greeted with beautiful, locally made oak reserve barrels on both sides of the aisle. It is these barrels that will hold the whisky for two years as it ages to become bourbon.

Angel’s plan is to offer two kinds of bourbon—the Big Witch Bourbon and the Smoked Blue Corn Straight Bourbon.

“We’ve started aging whisky for the future and still have several flavor projects to come out, but the state controls how much we roll out at one time based on the success of sales at the ABC stores,” Angel said. That regulation puts distilleries at a disadvantage when compared to those in Tennessee.

“When you go to Gatlinburg distilleries they have 10 flavors of whisky. That stuff doesn’t sell as well in the stores—we’ll sell more vodka in the liquor store—but people go to the distilleries for the fruity stuff, so it makes it a challenge,” he said.

‘Something unique’

Howell Golson, a graphic designer living in Maggie Valley, designed all of the Elevated Mountain Distillery labels. While Golson keeps a low-key profile in the community, there’s no doubt you’ve seen his work. He has designed the label for Newman’s Own wine, and the labels for Wicked Weed’s many beers. He’s also done work for Bridgeport Brewing, Coca-Cola, Farm Fresh, Cartoon Network and Target.

Angel met Golson by chance about two years ago while on a hike.

“I actually met him on Waterrock Knob while hiking. I was hiking up and he was hiking down and we took a break together. He said he lived in Maggie and I told him about the distillery. He mentioned he did graphic label work so I looked him up when I got home and saw all the incredible work he’s done,” Angel said. “He’s an amazing artist.”

Angel and Golson worked with Maggie Valley’s own famous banjo player Raymond Fairchild to embody Fairchild’s unique brand into one of the distillery products. The end result was Root Beer White Lightning. The slight root beer flavor makes the swallow a lot easier to take.

The label has a photo of Fairchild holding White Lightning, one of his many banjos. The border contains the Cherokee wave symbol because Fairchild is proud to be a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and the back of the label has a brief history about his career. So far, it’s been the best seller at the distillery. Everyone wants to take the Bluegrass Hall of Famer’s liquor home with them.

“Raymond made whisky for years on Campbell Creek with his family, so we worked with him on a recipe that would be something unique to him—something that stands out. So that’s why we went with the root beer flavor,” Angel said. “He’s a unique guy himself, so I wanted to capture the spirit of Raymond.”

A dream come true

Owning his own distillery has long been a dream for Angel, a Haywood County native. He spent most of his professional career working in human resources for large corporations across the country, but family and the need for a career change brought him back to the mountains.

As a child, Angel said he had a fascination for making spirits. He wanted to learn how it was done, and he says he learned from the best moonshiners in the county.

“I made my first still at 14 for a ninth-grade science project, and I’ve been playing with recipes ever since,” he said.

The road to see his dream realized hasn’t been easy. It’s been time-consuming, expensive and frustrating at times with many unexpected challenges, but that’s just part of the journey.

“It’s a relief to be here, finally,” Angel said. “It’s definitely been more complex and more hurdles than I expected.”

Finding the perfect location and facility for such an operation was challenging, but after some renovations, the former dinner theater building has worked out perfectly, he said—and Maggie Valley is exactly where he wanted to be.

3732 Soco Road, Maggie Valley, NC

Open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday

$5 for up to six tastings and a tour of the facility

828.944.0766 or facebook.com/pg/elevatedmountain