New Estate Bottles Rare Whiskey and Creates Lasting Memories
Written by Kaitlin Hill | Photos courtesy of Provenance Estate
“I thought I had retired in 2018,” shares Viyas Sundaram, a veteran of the tech world and most recently CEO of the Reston-based GoCanvas, which offers solutions to streamline data collection. “My daughters [were] 1 and 5 at that time, and I wanted to be the only daddy at the playgroup and relish in those moments.
“But I just don’t have an idle hand,” he continues, “so I ended up founding one of the largest resellers of rare whiskey, The Bourbon Concierge. I got immersed into bourbon culture and thus became a hobbyist, a collector of these rare bottles… I was just doing it as a fun passion project that accidentally ended up becoming this large enterprise.”
After partnering with a friend who owns a liquor store, Sundaram explains, “This light bulb went off in my head [about] being able to use digital strategy to connect people with this amazing history that’s rich in each of these rare bottles of whiskey.”
From collector to retailer, Sundaram next opened a whiskey bar in Georgetown called The Fountain Inn to showcase his love of rare bottles and in-depth knowledge of their history. The Fountain Inn “created this amazing ecosystem of reinforcement and customer loyalty,” he explains, “because we were creating a knowledge base and experiences for our customers.”
Then Sundaram decided to take that focus on education and passion a step further. “What I really want to do is bring people to the core of the journey to where the product is actually made,” he shares. “I wanted to actually create whiskey.”
That transition brought him to Hunt Country, a move beneficial for both his business and his family. “As my kids got [older] we would spend a little more time here, and then realized we wanted to live here,” he says, adding, “I am all about maximizing my time on this planet, so I decided to find a property where we could unlock our commercial desires as well.”
That property was Middleburg’s Mortgage Hall. Sundaram, a self-described restoration geek, shares, “It is a beautiful property, and the prior owner did an admirable job of getting it to its then state. But it still had so much deferred maintenance that I viewed it as an opportunity or a palette for us to paint something really magical.”
Out of Mortgage Hall, Provenance Estate was born. Since acquiring the property, Sundaram has been on a three-year mission to restore the facilities and install his whiskey experience vision, all while honoring the property’s history. He’s transformed the equestrian facilities into rickhouses that hold more than 2,000 aging casks and an upgraded tasting room with spectacular views.
This process, he shares, influenced his thinking on how to approach the creation of whiskey. “There is no way to recreate a 200-year-old estate in Middleburg. It is an experiential thing that is priceless. The same thing applies to whiskey.” He continues, “The reality of whiskey, just like our property, goes back generations. There are generational whiskey manufacturers in our country that have made an amazing product that can be the core foundation of our product. So, I made the decision to be what is called a non-distilling producer.”
Sundaram explains, “We acquire rare barrels from around the country, mostly Kentucky, and a few from across the pond, and we age them here in our Virginia rickhouses. Then we finish them.” In September, Sundaram and principal whiskey maker Jay West released 1787 Provenance Bourbon. Sundaram notes that West oversees the barrel selections and blending processes for all of 1787 Provenance Bourbon.
Beyond being respectful of a whiskey’s history, the decision to be a non-distilling producer is also an eco-friendly one. “To age and bottle whiskey, we are not using surplus water and there are no chemicals involved. Out of my 121 acres, maybe one acre is being used for the commercial component of this,” Sundaram says. He adds, “The most important employee … is actually a supervisor, and it is Mother Nature. She is the sole creator of whiskey.”
He’s currently pursuing a partnership with the Piedmont Environmental Council to be a prototype of how to “generate demand but use a really small footprint.”
This ethos extends to his vision for guest experience, too. Rather than having a tasting room with daily opening hours, Provenance Estate is open by appointment only and on the first Saturday of every month. “Instead of me trying to get a thousand people here, which is not the intent, my goal is to get eight people here to come and experience a barrel pick, choose their whiskey, and understand how it’s made,” he says. “Now I have eight people that are sharing the story at a cocktail party back in D.C., Maryland, Virginia. And that becomes our mechanism for broader commercialization, because those people then will go to a liquor store and buy the product from our outlets.”
The small group size is also ideal for another core component of Sundaram’s business: making memories. “The intention is to create a sort of multisensory experiential journey to create memories and shared moments through whiskey versus the whiskey itself.”
In fact, guests who visit aren’t initially offered a glass, but instead are encouraged “to take a bag of carrots the minute you arrive, and you’re going to go meet Martha and George, the two resident donkeys.”
Sundaram’s approach to the whiskey business is certainly unique. Part retail and part whiskey education, perhaps what is most alluring to guests is his genuine enthusiasm for selling something you can’t put a price on — lasting memories. ML
Published in the October 2025 issue of Middleburg Life.