In an effort to enlighten my tastes in spirits and liquors I visited St. George Spirits, creators of Hangar 1 vodka. Recently they sold off that brand to a bigger company, Proximo Liquors, who is better able to handle the international scale of production and distribution that Hangar 1 now merits. The sale has freed up master distiller Lance Winters and the rest of the team at St. George Spirits to focus on what they do best: research and produce experimental, top-quality spirits. On a recent visit to their Alameda distillery I was treated to a tour which unfolded in two parts. First, a knowledgeable guide walked us through their distillery and talked us through, in exacting detail, the scientific and artistic processes they use to produce their signature craft spirits. Second, we drank the following 5 spirits: Pear Brandy: The Tour: St. George Spirits’ Pear Brandy is done in the eau de vie style, which means “water of life” to the French, and fresh-fruit flavored liquor to the rest of us. Our guide explained that the goal of their eau de vie is to “trap the summertime harvest season in a bottle so you can enjoy it later in the year”. To ensure this experience, St. George Spirits follows three eau de vie rules:
The Drink: It smelled exactly like a fresh pear. And boozy too, obviously. Imagine if you were talking with someone really drunk and they tried to mask their breath by chewing a couple of Juicy Pear Jellybellys. It tasted even better. According to our guide, the pear brandy is “an amalgam of many flavors … cinnamon, toasted pie crust, mandarin blossom”. To me, it just tasted like a really nice, fresh pear, but I swirled it around my mouth and nodded agreeably anyway. We also tried a pear brandy spiced with cloves and cinnamon, the taste of which was succinctly captured by a nearby taster as “just like Christmas!” I really did have to agree with this. California Agricole Rum: The Tour: Ask someone what vodka’s made from. Grain, potatoes, fruit, rubbing alcohol. Who knows. Ask someone what rum’s made from. Sugarcane, everyone knows that. Well everyone’s wrong, or at least kind of wrong. It turns out the rum we usually drink comes from molasses, a sugarcane by-product. St. George Spirits is either really unconventional or really lazy, because they don’t bother with the molasses, cutting out the middle man and distilling the sugarcane grass fresh from the ground. The French coined this style “rhum agricole”, though St. George Spirits dropped the “h” and added the “California” to avoid lawsuits over appellation. If you’re wondering, molasses-made rum is known as rhum industrial (pronounced with French accentuation - ‘in-duh-stree-ALL’), but the only people I found online who used this term were agricole makers trying to give their drink a distinguished air. The Drink: It was as “ridiculously expressive” and “funky” as advertised: a bit grassy, a bit sweet. Oddly, it tasted like olive and sweet corn. It was indeed, “George Clinton in a bottle”. Green Chile Vodka: The Tour: First let’s answer that burning question: what is vodka made from? Anything it turns out. So long as it has sufficient sugars or starch, any plant matter can be ruthlessly distilled into the neutral spirit we call vodka. With vodka, tasteless is the ideal. Of course, anyone who ever left Trader Joe’s with a bottle of Vodka of the Gods knows that this ideal is difficult to reach. To hide that rubbing alcohol flavor, many companies add artificially flavored sugar water. “This is how you arrive at cotton candy-flavored vodka”. “That’s not how we roll here,” proclaimed our guide/future St. George spokesperson. He offered their Green Chile Vodka as an example. After being distilled from corn, it’s redistilled with jalapeno, lime, and cilantro and then infused with serranos, habaneros, and bell peppers. The Drink: It may sound crazy, but it actually tasted like chili rellenos to me, cheese and all. Of course there was no cheese in there, more likely it was phantom taste, brought on by the association of commonly paired flavors -- like how the smell of Febreze always makes you think you’re smelling poop as well. Terroir Gin:
The Tour: Wine erudites will recognize the term terroir, which refers to the unique characteristics imparted to wine grapes by the region in which they’re grown. The distillers of St. George Spirits, on an afternoon hike up Mt. Tamalpais, were inspired to make a drink that would capture the mountain's terroir qualities. “They said ‘this place smells amazing, and it’s gorgeous … we just have to make booze of it’”. Gin was the most logical platform for the Terroir Gin. It's a neutral spirit, like vodka, which can be easily infused. In addition to adding juniper berries, a gin standard, the distillers infused their Terroir Gin with Mt. Tam's unique botanical profile: Douglas fir pine, coastal sage, bay laurel, and fennel. The Drink: The Terroir Gin certainly smells like Mt. Tam. Had I been blindfolded I would’ve guessed a pinecone wreath lay before me. Thankfully the gin’s pine taste is tempered by the aforementioned “carrier flavors” (coastal sage, bay laurel, and fennel) which “help the Douglas fir pine come along the palate in a non-intrusive way.” Our guide recommended making Bloody Margarets (Bloody Mary with gin, not vodka) from their Terroir Gin. Absinthe Verte: The Tour: Our guide attempted to lift the “myth and misconception” from absinthe by relating its misunderstood past. Absinthe’s popularity first peaked in the 1850s amid an outbreak of aphids which had devastated French wine production. Parisians, in an attempt to sweeten the taste of poorly-made absinthe, began pouring the spirit over a sugar cube held in a slotted spoon; a ritual of absinthe consumption to this day. At this time, the opium tincture “laudanum” was a popular cure-all and Parisian party animals started doping their sugar cubes with laudanum before dissolving it into the absinthe. What’s more, Parisianers figured out that if they burning the laudanum-laced sugar cubes and inhaling its fumes resulted in getting really, really high... which of course, freebasing opium tends to do. This opium abuse and drug mixing turned absinthe drinkers into unhinged trainwrecks, known for their wild hallucinations and deteriorating bodies and minds. A resurging French wine industry, eager to recapture the alcohol market, was quick to demonize absinthe by blaming the spirit, rather than the opium, for the ill effects. For the record: absinthe is not hallucinogenic. Wormwood contains a minor amount of a compound, thujone, which can cause convulsions in high doses. But the amount in absinthe is negligible; as our guide pointed out, household cooking sage contains more thujone than absinthe does. In fact, an absinthe drinker trying to consume enough thujone to experience these effects would first have to surpass the lethal limit of alcohol several times over. The Drink: The absinthe was surprisingly sweet, with the licorice flavors of anise and fennel at the forefront. No sugar cubes necessary. Our guide did, though, recommend a single ice cube with a shot of absinthe in a tumbler glass. Perfect for a sunny day. St. George Spirits offers a tour & taste combo for $20. Seven days a week, hours vary. 2601 Monarch St, Alameda, CA 94501 (510) 769-1601 http://www.stgeorgespirits.com/
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