Summary
Regional Profile
Brand Profile
Distillery Profile
Whiskey Profile
Notes
Ragged Branch Distillery is the named business or producer connected with 
Brand Overview
Ragged Branch is a Virginia farm-based whiskey brand built around its own grain, a bourbon-making collaboration with Dave Pickerell, and a range that now includes both bourbon and rye. Its story has entered a new geographic chapter: production moved from the Charlottesville area to Augusta County in 2025, while the earlier location remains relevant to the brand's visitor experience.
Founders and the Move to Augusta County
Alex Toomy developed the business with partners Russell Nance and Chris Sarpy after the 2009 downturn affected his real-estate work. With Pickerell's guidance, the team produced its first bourbon in 2014. The current company account identifies Toomy as cofounder and master distiller and dates the move to his childhood farm in Augusta County to 2025. Founders and production history.
This is a relocation of an existing producer, not a newly founded whiskey brand. Mature whiskey currently sold may predate that move, so the new address should not be retroactively assigned as the distillation site of every five-year-old release.
Farm and Production Philosophy
The producer says its grain is milled and mashed daily and credits Pickerell with establishing the production approach continued by Toomy and the team. It presents the business as privately owned by friends and relatives with an agricultural foundation. Production account.
This connection to farming is most useful when tied to disclosed recipes rather than broad claims that a landscape inevitably produces a particular flavor. Ragged Branch's current product pages provide unusually concrete comparisons: corn and malted barley remain constant in two bourbons while rye is exchanged for wheat.
The Current Whiskey Range
Signature Bourbon is listed at 90 proof with 68% corn, 16% rye, and 16% malted barley, aged at least five years in number-three-char barrels. It is the rye-recipe reference point for the range. Signature Bourbon.
Wheated Bourbon is presented as bottled in bond at 100 proof, with 68% corn, 16% wheat, and 16% malted barley, also at least five years old. Its product page specifies number-three and number-four char. Cowboy Cut uses that wheated recipe at a variable proof; the strength belongs to the particular release rather than to a single fixed brand-wide value. Wheated Bourbon; Cowboy Cut.
The Straight Rye Bottled in Bond is listed at 100 proof, at least five years old, with 83% rye and 17% malted barley. It expands the agricultural story beyond bourbon and creates a useful contrast with the two corn-led recipes. Rye Whiskey.
Visiting and Understanding the Two Locations
The current production address is 1054 Old White Bridge Road, with a Waynesboro postal address. The company's FAQ directs visitors seeking tastings and cocktails to 92 Acres at 1015 Taylors Gap Road near Charlottesville. It also distinguishes production-facility access and barrel-selection appointments from the tasting-room experience. These are different visitor functions and should be planned accordingly. Current visitor guidance.
Regional Contribution
Ragged Branch offers an accessible way to explore Virginia-grown grain, recipe design, and the maturation of a farm distillery into an established producer. The most revealing comparison is not a generic “Virginia versus Kentucky” contest, but the brand's own rye-recipe bourbon, wheated bourbon, and rye. Each makes a different use of grain while preserving a recognizable production philosophy.
Research reviewed October 6, 2026. Current specifications and the 2025 relocation follow the producer's updated website. Older Charlottesville references remain part of the history, not current directions to production.
Official brand and portfolio source.
In Pictures
Brand and regional context. These images do not establish the source facility of every release.
