Qualla: A. Smith Bowman Distillery

A. Smith Bowman Distillery: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. Abram Smith Bowman bought back his right to make whiskey legally on December 5, 1933, the day federal Prohibition ended in the United States. The next day, December 6, 1933, his sons fired up the still on the family's 7,200-acre Sunset Hills Farm in Fairfax County, Virginia. For the next twenty years they ran the only legal whiskey distillery in the Commonwealth of Virginia, on land that two decades later would become the planned community of Reston. The brand was Virginia Gentleman bourbon. The motto, then and now, is that Virginia Gentleman is made by Virginians, for Virginians, in Virginia.

Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao | CC BY-SA 4.0

A. Smith Bowman Distillery: The Bowmans of Sunset Hills

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joshua Davis, CC BY-SA 2.5. Abram Smith Bowman descended from a long line of Bowmans who had been distillers, soldiers, and farmers in Virginia and Kentucky since the eighteenth century. Colonel Abraham Bowman, who lived from 1749 to 1837, had commanded the 8th Virginia Regiment during the Revolutionary War...

Image: Joshua Davis | CC BY-SA 2.5

A. Smith Bowman Distillery: Virginia's Only Legal Whiskey

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joshua Davis, CC BY-SA 2.5. From 1934 until the late 1950s, A. Smith Bowman was the only legal whiskey distillery in Virginia. The Commonwealth was a control state for liquor sales - the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board ran every liquor store in the state - but the Bowmans had a license to manufact...

Image: Joshua Davis | CC BY-SA 2.5

A. Smith Bowman Distillery: Sunset Hills Becomes Reston

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joshua Davis, CC BY-SA 2.5. By the early 1960s the Bowmans were being approached about selling their Fairfax County farm. The post-war suburbanization of Northern Virginia had reached them - Dulles Airport had opened on land just to the west in November 1962, and developers were buying up large tracts. The ...

Image: Joshua Davis | CC BY-SA 2.5

A. Smith Bowman Distillery: Sazerac Buys In

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2003 the A. Smith Bowman distillery was bought by the Sazerac Company, the privately held New Orleans-based liquor giant that owns Buffalo Trace, Pappy Van Winkle, Eagle Rare, and dozens of other brands. The Sazerac purchase brought new investment to the Fredericksburg facilit...

Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao | CC BY-SA 4.0

A. Smith Bowman Distillery: What You See From the Air

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0. The original A. Smith Bowman distillery site sits at 38.957 N, 77.351 W, in the middle of what is now Reston, Virginia - inside the loop formed by Sunset Hills Road and the modern office park development around the Reston town center. From the air the original buildings, where th...

Image: Ser Amantio di Nicolao | CC BY-SA 4.0