Every week, John Uselton leads tours of New Columbia Distillers in Ivy City, where he tells patrons all about the whiskey they’re making there. People tend to be confused—isn’t New Columbia all about gin, the Green Hat sold in those tall green bottles?

“A lot of people are surprised that we make whiskey,” says Uselton, the distillery’s co-owner and head distiller. “Unless you come and do a tour with us, people don’t know that it’s there.”

He hopes that’ll change in December, when New Columbia Distillers releases its first whiskey. The Green Hat Straight Rye Whiskey has been aging in 53-gallon charred oak barrels at the distillery for three years, while the company has been rolling out various versions of its Green Hat Gin. The team is planning to release about two barrels, about 500 bottles, of the juice on December 1.

While it’s not the first whiskey to be entirely produced in the District since Prohibition—One Eight Distilling’s Rock Creek whiskies hold that title—Uselton estimates that it is the oldest whiskey released in the city, meaning it was sealed up in barrels for aging first. Because it’s been aging for at least two years, Green Hat Straight Rye Whiskey is known as a straight whiskey.

“This is the first time straight whiskey has been released in the District since I don’t know when,” Uselton says.

Oddly enough given the name, Green Hat Straight Rye Whiskey is made with far less rye (theirs is sourced from Virginia) than most rye whiskies—about 72 percent to the usual average 95 percent, Uselton says. The remaining percentage is made up of two different types of malt.

“It’s got a bit more malt character and sweetness, enough rye in there to give you a spicy quality so it’s a really good balance between the two,” Uselton says. While he’s looking forward to sipping it neat or on the rocks, he predicts that the heavy malt flavor in the whiskey will make for “a really nice old-fashioned.”

New Columbia’s whiskey release follows a fleet of Green Hat Gins and a few varieties of its Summer Cup (kind of like a Pimms Cup) from the distillery. When it opened in 2012, New Columbia was the first distillery to open in the District since Prohibition. A slew of spirit-makers followed, turning Ivy City into a sort of distillery row. A few of them also produce whiskey, though so far only New Columbia and One Eight’s bottles are actually distilled in the city. Others, including Republic Restoratives’ Hillary Clinton-inspired and -approved rye whiskey, are made from pre-aged whiskey that’s purchased from another distiller. Sometimes these local companies then store it briefly themselves, allowing them to experiment with caskets that once held sherry, brandy, or even wine. 

After this release, Uselton says he’s eager to get on a schedule of regularly releasing whiskies. He’s got plenty to work with: Uselton says his distillery is packed with barrels of experiments born out of the whiskey-making process. Each one is a little different.

“We’ve been masters at squirreling things away,” Uselton says.