Flying Squirrel Ranch and Farm and RADA Craft Distillery offers a retreat with benefits.
If you like a comfortable time by the campfire and some easy sipping, we have the 2024 getaway for you. At Flying Squirrel Ranch and Farm and RADA Craft Distillery near Romney, you can rent a glamping tent—and sample the output of a boutique distillery.
Owner Stephen Settimi retired to this remote 30 acres about 10 years ago from his work with the U.S. Agency for International Development. Around that same time, his brother suggested microdistilling and, roundabout, Settimi created Flying Squirrel Ranch & Farm—named for squirrels that were inadvertently evicted when a hollow oak tree was removed—and RADA Craft Distillery.
It’s not exactly the farm you might already have pictured, with animals on pasture and acres of row crops. Settimi came to farming with a different focus: grapes for brandy, hazelnuts for filbert liqueur, uncommon grains like triticale for whiskey and moonshine, botanicals for flavoring gin.
Teaching himself the complete planting-to-bottle process made for a steep learning curve. Settimi eventually concluded, for example, that growing, harvesting, drying, and grinding one’s own grains for fermentation is prohibitively expensive. But with a decade of hard-won experience now behind him, he’s crafting spirits of true distinction, some of them uncommon in this region. From black walnuts, he makes an Italian liqueur called nocino—his top seller behind his bourbon. When the hazelnut harvest allows, he makes a Frangelico-like liqueur. He’s especially proud of his “Hampshire-style European botanical gin,” which is not, he says, like drinking a pine forest. “The juniper is dialed way back, and you pick up carrot, coriander, and bergamot—it brings out more of a botanical flavor. People that don’t normally like gin and also the ones that like gin both appreciate it.”
Each bottle of RADA spirits is a rare treat. The annual output of this distillery, under 100 gallons, spans bourbon, peated bourbon, and an American whiskey plus rye, gin, apple brandy, rum, black walnut liqueur, honey liqueur, and moonshine, with the hazelnut liqueur a novelty.
Curious for a taste? Call to schedule a visit—or better yet, book a 2024 weekend at one of the glamping sites and enjoy your distillery visit in style.
Purgittsville, 304.359.4254, flyingsquirrelranch.com, @fsqrf on FB
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