Belmont Farm Distillery sits on a working 200-acre corn farm in Culpeper, Virginia, founded by Chuck Miller in 1988 as Virginia’s first licensed whiskey distillery since Prohibition. Miller, a former IBM engineer turned farmer, started making moonshine using his family’s century-old recipe and corn grown right on the property. The operation runs out of a converted barn and farmhouse, where three generations of the Miller family now work together producing Virginia Lightning moonshine and other spirits using a copper pot still system. What began as Chuck’s retirement project has evolved into a full-scale distillery that’s been shipping spirits across the country for over three decades. The distillery produces everything from traditional clear corn whiskey to aged bourbon, all using corn they grow and grind on-site. You’re literally tasting spirits made from grain to glass on the same property, with the Miller family overseeing every step from planting to bottling. The farmhouse tasting room maintains that authentic rural Virginia atmosphere, complete with Chuck’s original moonshine-making equipment on display and stories about the early days when he had to convince state officials that his operation was legitimate.
