My New Book: Drugstore Whiskey, Pharmacy Gin

You've heard of bathtub gin, sure. Everyone has. The stuff has become shorthand for the legendary horrors of Prohibition-era drinking. But what was it? No, for real: what was that stuff — and was it always a horror? Where did it come from? Where did it go?

A peek inside.
Kornschärfe: It schärfes the Korn.

Though it may seem as if the action has slowed around here, the truth is that behind the scenes at the Whiskey Forge has been hectic as I've been writing for various magazines, traveling, giving talks around the country, and getting elbow-deep in several book projects. This morning, I woke to a tweet from Bitters author Brad Thomas Parsons congratulating me on the announcements for one of those books.

Here's the deal: I have a contract with Countryman Press, a branch of W.W. Norton, for a new book tentatively called Drugstore Whiskey, Pharmacy Gin that will hit the shelves in 2015. Eater reports "Veteran booze writer and author Matthew Rowley is at it again, this time turning his attentions to the recipes of the Prohibition bootleggers." Publishers Marketplace gives a little more:

Author and historian Matthew Rowley (Moonshine!, 2007) continues his exploration of illicit alcohol and cocktail culture in Drugstore Whiskey, Pharmacy Gin: Making It and Faking It with 200 Secret Booze Recipes from the Height of Prohibition. Using high-resolution images from a secret 1920’s manuscript, Rowley examines the traditions, ingredients, and cultural context of Prohibition bootlegging with extensive annotations and over 200 recipes. Sold to Ann Treistman at Countryman Press by Lisa Ekus of The Lisa Ekus Group. Publication Fall 2015.

If you've come to any of my talks over the last six months or so, you already know a bit about this since I've been using some of the material when kicking around notions of Prohibition-era urban moonshine. Years ago, I was given a gift: a 1920's manuscript hidden within what looked like a book of poetry. It wasn't. Rather, the book held page after page of handwritten recipes — in English, German, and occasional Latin — for gins, genevers, absinthes, whiskeys, rums, brandies, and dozens of spirits and cordials, essences and extracts, all tied to New York City at the height of Prohibition. Some recipes are for genuine articles. Others hail from an earlier era, a time when traditional beverages relied on herbs and spices for their flavors. Still others depend on 19th century advances in applied chemistry simply to fake some spirits and "enhance" others.

It'll be cool. Even most bartenders hip to vintage drinks haven't seen anything quite like this.

Home Fires: The State of Home Distilling in the US

Lew Bryson, editor at Whisky Advocate, asked me write about the current state of affairs for home distilling in the United States. A blanket federal ban on the practice is in place, but a few states are bucking those laws with more permissive laws and regulations of their own. Regardless of the laws, sub rosa distillers from the East Coast to the West are making an awful lot of homemade liquor for themselves, their families, and friends. No, I didn't forget you, Alaska. In fact, I'd be surprised if we don't see a new reality show called something like Alaska Bootleggers or Ice Road Moonshiners in the near future. From the Fall 2013 issue of Whisky Advocate, here's a piece originally titled Home Fires.

Casual observers often assume that home distilling, like wine making or beer brewing, is legal in America. Zymurgy Bob knows better. According to federal law, distilleries are never permissible in homes. His advice? “Do everything you can to reduce your visibility to the law,” he exhorts. “Conceal what you are doing.” The pseudonymous author of Making Fine Spirits, a guide to building and operating home-scale stills, closes his introductory chapter with modern home distilling’s most ironclad commandment: Thou Shalt Not Sell.

Alcohol distillation in the United States is highly regulated and federal judicial code is uniformly severe with those who skirt the rules. Once federal prosecutors bring charges against a suspect for illicit distillation, they are forbidden by law from dropping the case without express written permission from the Attorney General. If found guilty, violators could face up to five years in prison and be fined $10,000. Because illicit distillation, the argument goes, is a tax dodge, those who defraud the United States of tax revenue through such clandestine distilling shall forfeit (not may or might — shall forfeit) the land on which the distillery is located as well as equipment used to make spirits and all personal property in the building and yard.

Running off a few liters of whiskey or ultra-pure vodka in the basement may seem a harmless pastime to some, but are they perverse enough to risk losing homes, land, and nearly all their possessions by actually firing up a still?

For thousands of Americans, the answer is yes. Across the country, hobbyists buy and build small stills for making spirits in secret. Profit is beside the point; these distillers do not sell their products. Compared to the output of Chivas or Beam, their covert batches of gin, rum, seasonal brandies, whiskey, and hausgemacht absinthe are miniscule. Tuthilltown Spirits alone loses more in angel’s share than what most hobbyists produce in a year. Their enthusiasm, however, burns no less brighter than that of professional — and legal — craft practioners.

One California hobbyist, Navy Frank, grows wormwood in his yard and keeps glass jugs of homemade spirits in his dining room. Home distilling, as Frank describes it, is a facet of a larger DIY ethos. “It’s a maker mentality that drives people to make homemade cheese or beer or build something with their own hands or garden. There’s all this wonderful cross-pollination. If you sketched the connections of what people like us get excited about, they would form the most overlapping Venn diagram ever.”

Frank — not his real name — is a Navy veteran and an engineer by trade. In his cellar he makes rum, neutral spirits, absinthe, honey distillates, and a peated single malt. “That’s probably my favorite, but after sharing, and sampling, and more sharing, I’m down to just one bottle.” His modular distillery system uses three separate pots that can be rigged with different heads and condensers that vary with what, and how much, he is making. The largest boiler could hold a child. The smallest, no bigger than a rice cooker, is for extracting botanical essences.

I mention a New York distiller who created a flavor library of over 200 botanical extracts, including angelica seed and rare agarwood. “Oh,” he smiles. “Ramón!” Despite the continent between them, the two distillers know each other through online hobbyist groups. In this, they are typical. Hobbyists regularly turn to online forums such as Yahoo Distillers and Artisan Distiller for guidance. Like Frank and Bob, Ramón prefers a pseudonym, but because he works in the distilling industry, his concern goes deeper than their straightforward desire to avoid legal attention. While it’s not uncommon for craft distillers to have learned the basics of their trade at home, and even continue to refine it there, the majority who do so will not admit that on the record. Like them, Ramón assumes investors, concerned that federal liquor violations could ruin a licensed distillery, might jettison a partner or employee accused of illicit distilling. “If TTB keeps making it easier to open distilleries,” he muses, “then maybe the hobby side of the equation could finally become legal. I’d happily pay for a permit to make ten gallons or twenty each year for myself. I bet 90 percent of home distillers would do the same.”

While it’s true that several hundred American craft distilleries have opened in the last decade, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) does not issue permits for home distilling for any price. Some states, though, allow noncommercial production to varying degrees. Alaska, for instance, excludes “private” manufacture of spirits from its alcohol control laws...except in quantities that exceed federal limits. In other words, Alaska allows zero liters for home distillers. Missouri is more explicit, asserting that “No person at least twenty-one years of age shall be required to obtain a license to manufacture intoxicating liquor...for personal or family use.” Such use in the Show Me State, it may be noted, is up to 200 gallons per year. Go, Missouri. Arizona expressly permits personal distilling of spirits such as brandy or whiskey if owners register their rigs with the state’s Department of Liquor Licenses and Control. According to DLLC, however, none has done so.

Mike McCaw, distillery consultant and publisher of Zymurgy Bob’s book, argues that as governments are forced to examine all spending, “We may, just may, be at a political inflection point where [legalizing home distilling] could happen...it is simply not cost effective to chase down people with ten gallon stills.” Bob himself is less sanguine. Speaking by phone on his book tour, he says that pursuing people with ten gallon stills “does make sense if they’re selling it and there is tax evasion going on. And that is one of the main points of the whole “do not sell” prohibition. There is no money and so no tax being evaded there.”

“I hope — I hope — that’s giving me a margin of safety.”

I hope so, too. Good luck, Bob.

Goes well with:

• First things first. If you have legal questions about distilling in your country, state, or province, please get in touch with consultants and/or attorneys who know your local laws. The discussion forum of the American Distilling Institute is a good place to start. In the UK, check in with the Craft Distillers Alliance. 
• The business about unregistered distilleries and distilling with intent to defraud leading to forfeiting  one's property in the United States is addressed 26 USC § 5615. The full text is here. 
• Zymgurgy Bob's book, Making Fine Spirits, is available here. Mike McCaw, distillery consultant, still designer, and publisher of Bob's book, can be reached through The Amphora Society. 
• Whisky Advocate magazine is here. An earlier piece I did on white whiskey — and what to do with it — for the magazine is here. 
• Even the Ten Dollar Whore Sneered at Me, in which a New Orleans...ahm... independent contractor disapproves of me.

Not So Fast: Barrel Aged Gin Hits a Snag

We cocktail types like the barrel aged gins that have been showing up over the last few years on the American market. Their oakiness with suggestions of vanilla, nuts, butterscotch, and other more ephemeral tastes and smells can add intriguing and pleasant notes to mixed drinks. Those aged gins, however, were never supposed to have been approved. Oh, sure, some slipped through the scrutiny of the TTB (the federal agency tasked with enforcing regulations on, among other things, liquor). But the days of barrel-aged gins — at least by that name — are over until federal regulations catch up with distilling as it is practiced among today's nimble distillers.

From the Summer 2013 issue of Distiller, here's my piece originally titled "Not So Fast: Barrel Aged Gin Hits a Snag."

* * * 

Once thought of as almost extinct, aged gins have begun a tentative reemergence in the American market. Some consumers are puzzled by shades of honey and amber in what for many is the quintessential white spirit, but vintage spirits enthusiasts and cocktail aficionados greet the category with enthusiasm. They work particularly well in mixed drinks such as Negronis and the Martinez. As distiller PT Wood explains, “Aged gin is something that not everyone is doing and people are looking for things like that. I, for one, think it’s a delicious spirit.” How they are permitted to describe such spirits, though, has taken a few distillers by surprise.

The US Code of Federal Regulations (27 CFR Part 5 § 5.40) forbids as “misleading” age statements for several beverages, including cocktails, cordials, and gin. Yet some brands plainly declare their gins aged. In 2009, for instance, the Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau approved Corsair Artisan Distillery’s application for Barrel Aged Gin aged 6 months in charred American oak. “We submitted, it passed. It was no big deal,” says Corsair’s Darek Bell. Within the next three years, Smooth Ambler received approval for Barrel Aged Gin, Roundhouse got the green light for Imperial Barrel Aged Gin, and others came to market. More recent applications, however, have been rejected for using the same language. The product itself is not at issue, but an effective ban on age statements has led distillers to invent creative circumlocutions.

“I didn’t know anything about the TTB’s latest stance until we submitted and got denied,” explained Rob Masters, president of Colorado Distillers Guild. Masters distills Spring44’s Old Tom Gin, sweetened lightly with agave nectar and aged in toasted Chardonnay barrels. His application to use the plain-language description barrel aged to describe the gin triggered a COLA rejection in 2013. “Our way around it was using the phrase ‘barreled in American oak.’” Likewise, PT Wood’s application for barrel aged gin was rejected. After consulting with TTB, the co-owner of Wood’s High Mountain Distillery chose Treeline Barrel Rested Gin. “We also tried ‘barrel conditioned.’ There was a whole litany of other options. We finally agreed that ‘barrel rested’ wasn’t an age statement so much as a process statement.”

Domestic producers aren’t alone in bringing aged juniper spirits to the American market. Cognac Ferrand’s aged French gin Citadelle Réserve is available in several vintages; the Dutch firm Bols sells an aged expression of their popular genever; and Beefeater releases Burrough’s Reserve this summer, an oak 'rested' gin.

At one time gin was aged routinely, if inadvertently, in wood because barrels were the most economical option for storing and transporting it. In The Practical Distiller, his 1809 manual for the distilling trade, Samuel M’Harry advised American colleagues seeking the custom of “respectable neighbors” to filter their juniper-flavored spirits through maple charcoal then put the spirits into “the sweetest and perfectly pure casks.” M’Harry counseled against new barrels because they would impart color and taste to this premium gin. One could take this to mean that gin — proper gin — should be as clear as spring water. A more nuanced reading reveals that, while respectable neighbors in the young Republic may have ponied up more for maple-filtered gin untainted by barrels, those who drank common gin drank spirits that smacked of wood. Barrel aging, one could argue, is not modern innovation, but a return to American gin’s roots.

The discrepancy between earlier COLA approvals for barrel aged gins and the TTB’s current position rejecting them does not reflect a change of regulations or any new interpretation of existing rules. In fact, the agency seems stuck enforcing rules its employees understand are not aligned with current industry practice or consumer expectations. Tom Hogue, Director of TTB’s Office of Public and Media Affairs, offers an explanation. “In 1999, we were seeing approximately 69,000 label applications. Last year it was more than 150,000.” Rather than nefarious intent, new rules, or inequitable application of regulations, Hogue attributes the discrepancy to human error.

“The regulation hasn’t changed,” he says, “and I don’t think the interpretation of the regulation has changed. With that volume of applications, as we go back through things and get fresh eyes on something, if we see something that’s not compliant, we work with the label holder on a case-by-case basis to figure out the best way forward in a way that’s appropriate and balanced.” He notes that the Unified Agenda, the semi-annual list of regulatory actions the federal government intends to take, will post proposed regulation changes specifically for distilled spirits. Though no timeline is set for a discussion of aged gins, once proposed changes are posted, the public is invited to comment.

Robert Lehrman cautions that waiting for changes to occur through Unified Agenda action, however, could take years. The founder of Lehrman Beverage Law in northern Virginia helps distillers navigate complex federal regulations, including label compliance. His take on the CFR regulation is practical: age or no age on a label is a simple matter of fact. “If it’s true, not misleading, and factual, the government needs to get out of the way.”

His advice? Craft producers who make aged gin should “band together to petition the TTB and say ‘This rule is against innovation, against high-quality product, and really it serves no one and benefits nobody.’” Rather than simply allowing or disallowing age statements, he proposes a middle ground that specifies how long and in what gin is aged. “And that conceivably could go through relatively fast.” Faster, presumably, than waiting for the comments phase of the Unified Agenda.

Now that TTB staff have cottoned to the age statements implicit in barrel aged gin, they are obliged to deny new applications for aged and barrel aged gins. Unless the regulation changes — or someone lobbies successfully to change it — distillers must instead propose workaround phrases that describe their gin’s time in wood. A frustration, undoubtedly, but whatever we call them, more aged juniper spirits are on the way — and that’s progress.

Goes well with:

• The current issue of Distiller has more on gin, distilling regulations, spirits judging, an article by Corsair Artisan Distillery's Darek Bell on incorporating smoke in vodka, gin, whiskeys, and other sprits, and other. Check it out here.  

Whisky Advocate Runs Feature Story on White Whiskey by...Oh, Hey. Me.

You have to look at white whiskey 

on its own merits. 

If you judge it 

compared to aged whiskeys, 

it fails. 

Every time.

~ Darek Bell

Corsair Artisan Distillery

Shea Shawnson pours Double and Twisted light whiskey at Elixir

The current issue of Whisky Advocate magazine has a feature article on white whiskey by yours truly. [Edit 12/9/12: scroll down for a link to a PDF of the article.] White, light, unaged, minimally aged, and "raw" whiskeys are growing in popularity. Not everyone — including those who make it — agrees on what it is, so when editor Lew Bryson asked me to take a run at white whiskey, I made some phone calls, packed a sandwich, and hit the road to talk to distillers who make the stuff and drinkers who down it.

As grain spirits come off the still, in- dustry insiders call the heady, limpid distillate new make or white dog. Every whiskey distiller in the world makes it and almost all of it is destined for barrels. Some, though, trickles out to the public. Lately, distillers and consumers alike have taken to calling it white whiskey. Marketers trumpet it as a hot new thing. In truth, the wheel has been around longer. And fire, of course. But new make was old hat when Johnnie Walker took his first wobbly steps. 

What is novel is that until about 2005, few dreamt a market still existed for the stuff.

My travels brought me up the west coast of the United States. From tiny sheds up dirt roads to a distillery in an old Air Force hangar, I met with men and women making, selling, drinking, and mixing white whiskeys.

Bars and restaurants from New York to Seattle offer white whiskeys as a matter of course, even pride. White Manhattans and albino Old Fashioneds abound. If whiskey cocktails unblemished by oak are insufficiently exotic, trendy tipplers can ask for them “improved” 19th-century style with a few dashes of absinthe. 

Despite growing awareness and acceptance, the category is dogged by three recurrent questions. Two are worth addressing in passing: (1) Is white whiskey moonshine? and (2) Is it any good?

I tackle those in about 500 words, but the third question, the one people should be asking and which fills the bulk of the article, is what do we do with it? Pick up the Winter 2012 issue of Whisky Advocate for some of the answers — including arguments that the way many white whiskeys are made is completely wrong — or download a PDF of It's a Nice Day for a White Whiskey here.

Interviews, insight, and recipes from Thad Vogler of Bar Agricole and Shea Swanson of Elixir in San Francisco, Darek Bell of Corsair Artisan Distillery (and author of Alt Whiskeys), Jim Romdall of Vessel in Seattle, Ian and Devin Cain of American Craft Whiskey distillery, barber and distiller Salvatore Cimino, 13th generation master distiller Marko Karakasevic from Charbay, and, midwife to the modern tiki renaissance, Jeff "Beach Bum" Berry.

Here's a bonus recipe that didn't make the article from bartender Rhachel Shaw whom I ran into as a customer at rum bar Smuggler's Cove. Shaw pays tribute to Elizabeth Taylor (whom one can only presume guzzled staggering quantities of raw whiskey) with a drink named for the late movie star's perfume:

White Diamonds  

1.5 oz. Koval Chicago Rye
.75 oz. Cocci Americano
.5 oz. Maraschino
1 dash Bitterman's Grapefruit Bitters 

Stir on ice. Strain. Garnish with grapefruit peel.

American Apple Spirits

In the airless, nearly gluey July night, black-suited pallbearers hoist aloft a plain wooden coffin and begin their walk. In their wake, solemn mourners march slowly, thick humidity muffling their every footstep. Musicians follow, their low, brassy dirge echoing off damp stones as they move toward the Vieux Carré. The somber mood doesn’t last; this is, after all, New Orleans, where funerals are as much a cause for celebration as they are for sadness. Within blocks, the band strikes up a familiar Dixieland tune. Smiles and whoops break out as the celebrants form a dancing, singing, handkerchief-waving “second line.” Hallelujah! The saints, those reliable old saints, go marching in once again. Once it reaches the French Quarter, the line spills into a Decatur Street café where liquor flows freely and the party begins in earnest. No one — not a soul — sheds a tear for the deceased.

How could they? It was the Appletini.

* * *

My piece on American apple spirits runs in the Summer 2012 Distiller magazine  — part thumbnail history of apple distillates, part overview of some of today's producers. The bit above is the original intro. Fun to write, but it took too long to get to the point, so I cut it. Ah, well. What's the point of having a blog if I can't occasionally post sweepings from the cutting room floor?

Some of the distilleries covered are Laird & Company, Germain-Robin, Osocalis, Harvest Spirits, Clear Creek Distillery, San Juan Island Distillery, and more. Applejack and apple brandy are the same thing (except, obviously, when they're not), but they're hardly the only apple spirits available. As much as we adore Laird's apple brandy — and make no mistake: we sincerely do — it's not the only option for those who hanker for a bit of the old apple palsy.

Here's a PDF of the piece from Distiller with interviews, historic and modern cocktail recipes, and a look at some of what's available for American consumers.

Rowley Named Distiller's New Contributing Editor

We cover a lot of things here at the Whiskey Forge that aren't whiskey. From rum to raccoons, if you can eat it or drink it, it's fair game. But spirits and those who make them are the bedrock of my...I won't say passion; that threadbare word has lost any real meaning through overuse and conflation with mere enthusiasm. Let's instead agree that spirits and those who make them are an obsession. And, yes, I fully embrace the negative connotations as well as the positive.

Just bring your apples to the distillery

Meeting with distillers is one of the main reasons I travel. When I'm on the road, I delve into archives and historical collections about liquor. I visit bars and track down particular bartenders to keep on top of the never-ending cycle of old becoming new and new becoming old. Used bookstores, flea markets, estate sales, and antique malls are my hunting grounds for tracking down the material culture of the distilling arts.

So when Distiller magazine invited me to become contributing editor, what could I do but say yes? Distiller is the print magazine of the American Distilling Institute. Its focus is the business and industry side of beverage alcohol distilling (i.e., booze). I'll be doing book reviews and feature pieces primarily on the American distilling scene with diversions into Caribbean, South American, European, and Asian distilling when they fit the conversation.

The first feature piece I've written is on American apple spirits. Lord knows we like Laird's 100-proof bonded apple brandy around here — having killed two bottles in the last two weeks — but it's no longer the only respectable option. The piece takes a look at the history of American apple distilling  from colonial times to just about three weeks ago.

When it drops, I'll give the details.

For now, I'm working on book reviews and a longer feature on...well...you'll just have to wait.

Bitter Disappointment from Japan

I’ve been working on a documentary project that requires a comprehensive representation of cocktail bitters. Given the burst of interest in the field and ever-increasing new producers, that imminently manageable — and largely historical — project has metastasized into a monster.

Monsters, I can handle. Work goes on. Heartbreak, however, wasn’t part of the plan.

One of the last bottles of Hermes Orange Bitters

When I discussed the project earlier in the year with San Francisco barman Neyah White, I asked him whether Suntory still made Hermes brand orange bitters. Stocks had seemed to dry up both online and in bricks-and-mortar stores. As West coast ambassador for Suntory whisky, White was in a position to know the status of the company’s products.

The brand was dead, he reported. There had been discussions in Japan to revive it in light of America’s resurging interest in cocktails, but...no dice. It had become an extinct ingredient. Some time later, he wrote that he had secured for me a single bottle, used, only partially empty, but with a broken cap.

He wrote:

Last night in Tokyo, we hit the best Whisky Shop in the City...totally solid shop, vintage Chartreuse, vintage whisky (as in things bottled in the 50's and 60's), tons of Amari, 13 Ichiro's Malts, rums I have never seen, 5 Pimm's, etc., etc.. I ask politely about Hermes and the owner smiles sadly, goes to the back brings out his last bottle, it has a slightly broken top so he set it aside and never sold it. He says he is sad it won't come back and is hanging on to this as a sample. I say that is great.

We keep poking around and showing our appreciation for things we find and he grabs some glasses and pours all drams of Wild Turkey bottled in the 70's. Not crazy good, but very cool. One of the guys with us is Lincoln Henderson (former Master Distiller for Jack Daniels) and tells the owner how he is an old friend on Jimmy Russell and how this is some of the first stuff that Jimmy both made and bottled, pretty important really. The next thing I know a bottle of medicinal rye from 1927 gets opened and each get a nip of that. shockingly good, very maple-y.

To say thanks, I pull out .375 of St. George's Grappa that I had lugging around (I brought gifts for the Suntory folk, had extras) and present it too him. He promptly turned around and grabbed the Hermes Orange and gave it to me.

Where do I send it?

I’m no fool. I told him. When the package didn’t come, I assumed White simply hadn’t shipped it yet. But, in fact, he had. The shippers had misplaced it and the package languished for months. White eventually tracked it down.

I was so happy when that box finally arrived. Happy that I had my hands on such a thing and that Neyah White had thought enough of me to send his only bottle — and one with such a great story. This truly was passing on a kindness. I brought the small brown box inside, opened it, and carefully pulled back its first two flaps.

A potent orange aroma arose from the box mixed with something...else. Was it cardamom? Cloves? I closed my eyes and tried to place it. Almost instantly, the smell registered as “wet cardboard." My eyes shot open and I sucked air in through my teeth. Brad Pitt's line from the film Se7en springs to mind: What’s in the box? I grabbed a bone folder from the counter and, with trepidation, shifted packing peanuts aside. What’s in the fucking box? Even stronger smells of warm, wet cardboard and orange wafted out. Underneath the top layer: shattered green glass, a torn label, packaging material that had shriveled and shrunken into hard little knobs.

The only bottle of Hermes orange bitters I’d seen in years was splayed out, utterly destroyed. During its time in courier limbo, the bottle’s broken cap had slowly trickled bitters — drip, drip, drip — onto biodegradable packing peanuts. The peanuts did what they were designed to do; they began to shrivel and dissolve. With the padding reduced to a fraction of its original size, the bottle was freed to bang around within the box. All it needed was rough handling to crush its precious cargo.

Life, as it must, goes on, as does the bitters documentary project. But not with Hermes. Not today, anyway.

Goes well with:

• A look at Chris Bunting's Drinking Japan. If I visit Japan any time soon, I'm taking his book.
• And I'll probably do some more studying of Mark Robinson's Izakaya: The Japanese Pub Cookbook
• If you are a modern producer of cocktail bitters and we haven't spoken about including your products, shoot me an email (moonshinearchives at gmail dot com) and I'll give you the skinny.
  

Hurricane Season

Photo: Ryannan Bryer de Hickman

As Hurricane Irene bears down on the Eastern seaboard, I understand the concern that friends and family back East feel. Powerful cyclones can be frightening and this one looks like a doozy. At last word, New York City hospitals were being evacuated. My advice? Get to a safe and secure place with whatever supplies you need. Then turn on some music, break out the rum, throw yourself a little New Orleans-style hurricane party, and wait it out — with the appropriate cocktail.

In the Winter 2011 issue of The Zenchilada, I wrote a column about an iconic New Orleans cocktail, beloved by visitors, if not necessarily by each and every local.

It’s not true, as some claim, that Crescent City natives neither eat Lucky Dogs nor drink Hurricanes, but that drink is a decidedly tourist affair aggressively seasoned with dark rum. After that, opinions diverge on ingredients. If you order a Hurricane in New Orleans today, you likely will be served a strong red drink. None of what you’re likely to get is particularly good. Whether from a bar or a clandestine street vendor, the rule for concocting one seems to be “Make it red, make it rum”—but that’s not how it started, and that’s not what growing numbers of drinkers around the world are mixing when they want to evoke the French Quarter and Mardi Gras.

The article traces the history of the drink and gives five recipes from the original 1940’s version (that was not red, though it was rum) to modern interpretations and quotes from tiki historian Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, “King Cocktail” Dale DeGroff, and Matt “RumDood” Robold. Rounding out the pack of drinks authorities is Tiare Olsen, the Tiki Queen of Sweden, with her “Funky Hurricane” bolstered with Smith & Cross, a funky, funky pot-stilled Jamaican rum.

For the article and recipes, go to The Zenchilada.com, and navigate to page 32 of the Winter 2011 issue about carnivals and feasts. Or download the PDF here.

Recent Projects: Malt Advocate

Just before the Memorial Day weekend, the new issue of Malt Advocate dropped in my box. Celebrating its twentieth year, the issue is replete with whiskey reviews, invectives hurled against garnishes and bloggers, industry news, projections, and interviews. As always, it's an entertaining read and a great look into the personalities, firms, and bottlings that make the world of whisk(e)y such a great place to spend time.

There, on page 28, is my contribution to the state of spirits in the US. As a guest writer for the Small Stills column, I posed a simple question:

The United States has seen enormous growth of new craft distilleries over the last decade. As encouraging as that growth is, formal opportunities for those who want to learn how to distill have not kept pace. This raises a straightforward question: where are these new distillers learning to make spirits?

Those who know me and know my line of research already know the answer: While some take weekend courses, university classes, and hands-on workshops, the simple answer is that many learn in their own homes. 

Interviews with John Couchot of Rogue Spirits in Portland, OR, Jim Blansit of Missouri's Copper Run Distillery, New York vintner Seth Kircher, and a couple of guys who prefer to go nameless. For more, pick up the Summer 2011 issue of Malt Advocate (vol 20, no 2). 

Recent Projects: The Art of Distilling Whiskey

At Tales of the Cocktail in 2008, I sat on a panel to talk about the resurgence of homemade spirits in modern America. With me were distillers Mike McCaw and Ian Smiley. In the audience sat Max Watman, Bill Owens, and a smattering of other distillers (some with permits, some not) who knew full well that a sub rosa renaissance in small batch spirits was underway.

Afterwards, Owens asked if I would write about moonshine for a book he was planning on whiskey distilling. I tweaked the Tales talk and the result is a section in his The Art of Distilling Whiskey and Other Spirits released recently. My section covers the resurgence of off-license distilling in the US, traces its recent history, and makes an attempt at categorizing such distillers into broad and sometimes overlapping categories.

Other contributors are essentially people in the room that day: McCaw, Smiley, Watman, me. Andy Faulker contributed photos and Fritz Maytag of Anchor Distilling—one of the godfathers of modern craft distilling—wrote the forward.

The book isn’t a manual of how to distill, but more an explanation of spirits categories with a heavy focus on the modern American market. There’s a section on stills and how various kinds work, but for me the most engaging aspect of the book is its profiles of distilleries and distillers that are shaping the future of artisanal American spirits. It's this section that reveals just how widespread distilling is becoming.

Distillers and distilleries highlighted include:

• Sonja Kassebaum (North Shore Distillery, Illinois)
• Guy Rehorst (Great Lakes Distillery, Wisconsin)
• Chris Weld (Berkshire Mountain Distillers, Massachusetts)
• Phil Pritchard (Pritchard’s Distillery, Tennessee)
• Steve McCarthy (Clear Creek Distillery, Oregon)
• Garrison Brothers Distillery (Texas)
• Leopold Brothers (Colorado)
• Tuthilltown Spirits (New York)
• Philadelphia Distilling (Pennsylvania)
• Chris Sule of Celebration Distillation [i.e., Old New Orleans Rum (Louisiana)]

And a few dozen others. Not a book to teach you how to distill, but definitely worth a look if you want to see what others are doing with their knowledge of how to run a still and—just as importantly—a distillery.

Bill Owens and Alan Dikty (2009)
Forward by Fritz Maytag
The Art of Distilling Whiskey and Other Spirits
176 pages, paperback
Quarry Books
ISBN: 1592535690
$24.99

Recent Projects: Modern Moonshine Techniques

Bill Owens and I don't necessarily see eye-to-eye on what moonshine should be, much less what it is or even how to make it. But Owens understands the increasing popularity of specialty spirits that tap Americans' nostalgia for that good old mountain dew. On that, we can both agree.

As president of the American Distilling Institute, he also understands the revenue such spirits could generate for craft distilleries. When he asked me to edit Modern Moonshine Techniques, his recent book on distilling white dog and whiskey, I happily obliged.

When I'm not writing on my blog for free, I write, edit, and polish words for businesses that don't have the time or in-house expertise to tackle websites, books, manuals, reports, scripts, speeches—that sort of thing. Not as glamorous as whipping up cocktails before noon, but client projects that overlap like this make me especially happy.

The book is geared for distillers interested in setting up small craft distilleries and provides recipes for so-called moonshine (i.e., sugar wash spirits), corn whiskey, bourbon, wheat, and rye whiskeys. In it, Owens writes about federal classifications of spirits, types of stills, how to build a mash tun and a corn cooker for mashing maize, and how to distill on a 100-gallon pot still. Tapping ADI membership, he also gives sample spreadsheets for startup costs on a small distillery, grant application samples (for conducting distillery feasibility studies), and lists resources for supplies, books, and online information about running a distillery.

[Disclaimer: Should be obvious, but this isn't a review, just a description of a project on which I worked for my writing business. If you like, you can order a copy here. I'll leave it to others to review. My role was editing Bill's manuscript. I'm always open to talking to others about writing projects. For information on writing and editing services, click here.]

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