Murrysville men launch White Valley Distilling

Jim Battaglia grew up hearing stories about how his grandfather used to do some distilling back in the day.

“He’d make an additive for farm equipment, but he was also known to make a pretty good whiskey, from what I understand,” said Battaglia, a Murrysville resident.

In a roundabout — and legal — way, Battaglia accidentally found himself following in his grandfather’s footsteps when his new company, White Valley Distilling, got all of its permits and licensing in line just as the state’s liquor stores were shutting down amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The production line for his debut spirit, Export Shine, hustled into motion.

“We had 100 bottles done last Monday, and they were gone by Friday morning,” Battaglia said.

Along with fellow Murrysville resident and business partner Will Ramaley, Battaglia launched the company a little sooner than he’d hoped, but the timing was too fortuitous to pass up.

“We were planning to launch in the summer and have several products,” he said. “It takes some time to ferment it, bottle it and get it conditioned and ready for sale. But with the liquor stores being closed, the issues getting through to the (state stores’) ordering service, we figured we’d get our first 100 bottles done.”

A few Facebook posts later, Battaglia and Ramaley found themselves fresh out of product.

Working out of the former American Legion in Export, the pair labors with Battaglia’s grandfather’s actual whiskey still keeping watch in a display on a side wall. He tracked it down through an uncle.

“That’s what we learned on,” Battaglia said. “We actually ran it until the copper on the bottom started to get holes in it.”

Battaglia grew up on the same farm as his father and grandparents, in the White Valley neighborhood that became his company’s namesake.

Becoming a fully licensed distiller was a six-year process involving both state and federal licenses and permits. It could potentially have been shorter, “but we financed everything ourselves, we don’t have any investors,” Ramaley said. “There’s a lot more pressure when it’s not just you and your partner making a product.”

Their Export headquarters has the look of a science experiment gone wild, with the distilling setup surrounded by multi-colored containers in various states of fermentation.

“We just put a batch of rum in barrels right now to get it to the still early next week,” Battaglia said. “We’re going to do a gin, a vodka, and as soon as we get some oak barrels in here, we’re going to start aging some good old Irish whiskey.”

And now that White Valley Distilling is a fully-licensed business and not a backyard hobby, there are more rules to follow.

“I have to go through the Department of Agriculture just like a restaurant,” Battaglia said. “There’s four reports I have to fill out monthly, breaking down every single thing I did and every bucket of liquor I’ve moved around.”

With product in the works along with a company website, Ramaley and Battaglia are using their social media contacts to build buzz for their new venture.

Selling 100 bottles of Export Shine in less than five days is not a bad start.

“We have one run under our belts,” Battaglia said, gesturing to the containers behind him. “And this is probably enough for another 200 or 250 bottles.”

For more, see Facebook.com/WhiteValleyDistilling.