mumbleypeg
12-01-2004, 09:50
From todays LA Times. The only one I've have the pleasure of trying is the Aged Old Potrero. It is something like pancakes with Maple syrup on fire.
The west Coast is Still, Not Quiet.
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-whiskey1dec01,0,107046.story?coll=la-home-food
WINE & SPIRITS
Whiskey Reinvented
Up and down the West Coast, a craft distilling movement is gathering steam -- and making some awfully good spirits.
By Charles Perry
Times Staff Writer
December 1, 2004
In the last few years six distilleries have started making and selling whiskey in California and Oregon, and two more will join them in the next year or so. An equal number of outfits up and down the coast are eyeing the idea. Already we have three times as many (legal) pot-still distilleries as the rest of the country combined.
Easterners may be puzzled. The West Coast is known for lighter drinks — beer and wine. In fact, that may be exactly why small-batch whiskey is happening here. "West Coast consumers are more receptive to craft whiskey," says Lee Medoff of Edgefield Distillery near Portland, Ore. "They've grown up with wineries and microbreweries."
A distinctive process
Most of the world's whiskey is made in high-volume continuous stills that can produce thousands of gallons a day. The West Coast craft whiskey movement has gone back to the antique pot still, which is more labor intensive and a lot less productive, yielding perhaps five gallons per batch. But it produces a more distinctive result, which is why single-malt Scotch has always been pot-distilled.
The whiskey makers come from two quite different traditions. There are brewers — down-to-earth guys from craft breweries who know their grains — and there are makers of European-style fruit brandy (eau de vie), with its goal of preserving delicate fruit flavors through the brutal process of distillation.
St. George Spirits, on Alameda Island in the Bay Area, has roots in both traditions and shows the unprecedented possibilities of a new approach to whiskey. Master distiller Jörg Rupf comes from generations of eau-de-vie distillers in Germany; assistant distiller Lance Winters was a brewer before he joined in 1995. The product of their collaboration is like no other whiskey ever — it has a rainbow of sweet fruit and flower aromas you can scarcely believe come from grain, and an amazing smoothness on the palate.
Best known for its Hangar One Vodka, the distillery is in a striking location: an isolated airplane hangar in the former Alameda Naval Air Station. From its back door there's a picture-postcard view of San Francisco.
Rupf and Winters use a mixture of the toasted malts that give color and flavor to darker beers such as porter and stout; they're the only West Coast distillers to do so. Perhaps this is where their whiskey gets the striking fruit aromas that make it so distinctive. (Their use of Bourbon barrels also explains some of its sweetness.) They also include some smoked malts — not smoked over peat, as for Scotch, but over hardwoods such as beech and alder.
Another San Francisco company, Anchor Brewing Co., made the first of these West Coast whiskeys: Old Potrero. Anchor's owner, Fritz Maytag (whose family created both Maytag washers and Maytag blue cheese), has a track record of turning out excellent products by revitalizing old-fashioned, small-scale production techniques. His Anchor Steam beer was instrumental in reviving craft beer brewing in the 1970s.
Around that time, he was intrigued to read that 200 years ago, most American whiskey was rye (see "Heads, Tails of Making Whiskey"), sold straight from the still without barrel aging. He decided to set about rediscovering the sort of whiskey George Washington made: 100% rye.
"There was an opportunity here to step in," Maytag says, "on a tiny little scale, the way we did with beer, taking very traditional attitudes but with modern food processing knowledge." He made his first whiskey in 1993.
Maytag bottles his whiskey the old-fashioned way, at the same strength as it comes from the still: 124 proof. Because of post-Prohibition laws, he has not been able to sell it without aging it, as he originally envisioned, but he does release one version (which, under California law, he can only call "spirit," not whiskey) aged only two years. Another is aged three years in charred Bourbon-type barrels.
"It's a pilot project, a research project," Maytag says. "Mind you, I hope it will grow."
His whiskeys, particularly the minimally aged "spirit," are powerfully flavored and might make people reevaluate the lost taste for rye whiskey — and the current craze for aging. His youngest bottling has fascinating fresh flavors that years in the barrel can only muffle.
The other Bay Area whiskey maker is Domaine Charbay, long known for its high-end brandies and eaux de vie made at a small vineyard in the hills above Napa Valley. (It also has a larger distillery in Ukiah.)
Though the Karakasevic family have been distillers for 13 generations, that doesn't mean Charbay is old-fashioned. "I didn't want to make a Bourbon, and I didn't want to make Scotch," says Marko Karakasevic. "I liked the idea of adding hops, as in beer." A few Bourbon makers use hops, but other West Coast distillers have rarely tried making hopped whiskey.
Karakasevic ages his whiskey in Bourbon-type charred barrels. His first batch, released at 5 years, sold in an eye-catching etched bottle, at a startling 129.4 proof and a staggering price: $325. It is a majestic whiskey, tasting of butterscotch and vanilla with apple fruit, but the main impression is of solidity, harmony and concentration, like a great big bull's-eye.
West Coast movement
In a far less romantic location — an industrial park in Irwindale — is St. James Spirits, the only one of these distilleries in Southern California. In this homely room, Jim Busuttil — by day a science teacher in El Monte — turns out a variety of unusual and very professionally made liquors, including cherry brandy and a tequila equivalent aged in French oak.
His whiskey, Peregrine Rock, is another West Coast experiment in combining Bourbon and Scotch techniques. The malt comes from Scotland and is lightly peated, but the whiskey is aged partly in new Bourbon barrels. It has some of the fruitiness of the St. George, but its wry edge of smoky flavor makes it feel like a traditional whiskey style — from some undiscovered land. Though Busuttil's plant is a small one, he has a substantial inventory of aging whiskey.
Currently two operations are making whiskey in the Portland area. Clear Creek Distillery, Stephen McCarthy's eau-de-vie distillery, was the second to make a West Coast whiskey. In 1994 McCarthy ran out of fruit and began using a mash brewed for him by neighboring Widmer Bros. Brewery using peat-smoked barley imported from Scotland. McCarthy's whiskey is emphatically Scottish in the most uncompromising style: You'd think it was an ultra-peaty Islay malt like Lagavulin or Laphroaig. Even so, he's not strictly imitating Scotch. After aging his whiskey two or three years in used sherry barrels, as would be done in Scotland, he finishes it in new barrels of Oregon white oak for six to 12 months.
"Oregon winemakers tried white oak for a while," he says, "but they concluded it wasn't suitable for wine. I tried it as a lark and decided I liked what it did to the whiskey — it gave it a richer, more complex character."
Edgefield Distillery in Troutdale, Ore., is the crown jewel among the 50-odd brew pubs, restaurants and inns run by the McMenamin brothers in Oregon and Washington. Distiller Lee Medoff, a former brewer, enjoys a unique luxury — built-in demand. Other distillers struggle to get distributors, but Medoff just sends his product to the company's pubs. "The public has been very receptive," he says. Medoff uses malted barley but ages the whiskey in new Bourbon barrels. His standard product Hogshead is an unpretentious 3-year-old, smooth and light like a young Bourbon, but not as sweet. Next year he will release a richer 5-year-old.
The West Coast whiskey movement continues to grow — Lagunitas and Sweetwater, two distilleries in Petaluma, Calif., currently have whiskey aging. Fish Tale Ale in Seattle is serious enough about getting into distilling to have gotten a Washington state law changed. An outfit called Glenkelley plans to build a distillery near Yosemite where it will even grow its own barley.
The obvious, most lucrative drink for craft distillers to make is flavored vodka, the trendiest spirit of our age. Several do.
Then why make whiskey too? Clearly, it's the allure of creating rare and sophisticated flavors from something as mundane as grain. It's alchemy, bro.
The west Coast is Still, Not Quiet.
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-whiskey1dec01,0,107046.story?coll=la-home-food
WINE & SPIRITS
Whiskey Reinvented
Up and down the West Coast, a craft distilling movement is gathering steam -- and making some awfully good spirits.
By Charles Perry
Times Staff Writer
December 1, 2004
In the last few years six distilleries have started making and selling whiskey in California and Oregon, and two more will join them in the next year or so. An equal number of outfits up and down the coast are eyeing the idea. Already we have three times as many (legal) pot-still distilleries as the rest of the country combined.
Easterners may be puzzled. The West Coast is known for lighter drinks — beer and wine. In fact, that may be exactly why small-batch whiskey is happening here. "West Coast consumers are more receptive to craft whiskey," says Lee Medoff of Edgefield Distillery near Portland, Ore. "They've grown up with wineries and microbreweries."
A distinctive process
Most of the world's whiskey is made in high-volume continuous stills that can produce thousands of gallons a day. The West Coast craft whiskey movement has gone back to the antique pot still, which is more labor intensive and a lot less productive, yielding perhaps five gallons per batch. But it produces a more distinctive result, which is why single-malt Scotch has always been pot-distilled.
The whiskey makers come from two quite different traditions. There are brewers — down-to-earth guys from craft breweries who know their grains — and there are makers of European-style fruit brandy (eau de vie), with its goal of preserving delicate fruit flavors through the brutal process of distillation.
St. George Spirits, on Alameda Island in the Bay Area, has roots in both traditions and shows the unprecedented possibilities of a new approach to whiskey. Master distiller Jörg Rupf comes from generations of eau-de-vie distillers in Germany; assistant distiller Lance Winters was a brewer before he joined in 1995. The product of their collaboration is like no other whiskey ever — it has a rainbow of sweet fruit and flower aromas you can scarcely believe come from grain, and an amazing smoothness on the palate.
Best known for its Hangar One Vodka, the distillery is in a striking location: an isolated airplane hangar in the former Alameda Naval Air Station. From its back door there's a picture-postcard view of San Francisco.
Rupf and Winters use a mixture of the toasted malts that give color and flavor to darker beers such as porter and stout; they're the only West Coast distillers to do so. Perhaps this is where their whiskey gets the striking fruit aromas that make it so distinctive. (Their use of Bourbon barrels also explains some of its sweetness.) They also include some smoked malts — not smoked over peat, as for Scotch, but over hardwoods such as beech and alder.
Another San Francisco company, Anchor Brewing Co., made the first of these West Coast whiskeys: Old Potrero. Anchor's owner, Fritz Maytag (whose family created both Maytag washers and Maytag blue cheese), has a track record of turning out excellent products by revitalizing old-fashioned, small-scale production techniques. His Anchor Steam beer was instrumental in reviving craft beer brewing in the 1970s.
Around that time, he was intrigued to read that 200 years ago, most American whiskey was rye (see "Heads, Tails of Making Whiskey"), sold straight from the still without barrel aging. He decided to set about rediscovering the sort of whiskey George Washington made: 100% rye.
"There was an opportunity here to step in," Maytag says, "on a tiny little scale, the way we did with beer, taking very traditional attitudes but with modern food processing knowledge." He made his first whiskey in 1993.
Maytag bottles his whiskey the old-fashioned way, at the same strength as it comes from the still: 124 proof. Because of post-Prohibition laws, he has not been able to sell it without aging it, as he originally envisioned, but he does release one version (which, under California law, he can only call "spirit," not whiskey) aged only two years. Another is aged three years in charred Bourbon-type barrels.
"It's a pilot project, a research project," Maytag says. "Mind you, I hope it will grow."
His whiskeys, particularly the minimally aged "spirit," are powerfully flavored and might make people reevaluate the lost taste for rye whiskey — and the current craze for aging. His youngest bottling has fascinating fresh flavors that years in the barrel can only muffle.
The other Bay Area whiskey maker is Domaine Charbay, long known for its high-end brandies and eaux de vie made at a small vineyard in the hills above Napa Valley. (It also has a larger distillery in Ukiah.)
Though the Karakasevic family have been distillers for 13 generations, that doesn't mean Charbay is old-fashioned. "I didn't want to make a Bourbon, and I didn't want to make Scotch," says Marko Karakasevic. "I liked the idea of adding hops, as in beer." A few Bourbon makers use hops, but other West Coast distillers have rarely tried making hopped whiskey.
Karakasevic ages his whiskey in Bourbon-type charred barrels. His first batch, released at 5 years, sold in an eye-catching etched bottle, at a startling 129.4 proof and a staggering price: $325. It is a majestic whiskey, tasting of butterscotch and vanilla with apple fruit, but the main impression is of solidity, harmony and concentration, like a great big bull's-eye.
West Coast movement
In a far less romantic location — an industrial park in Irwindale — is St. James Spirits, the only one of these distilleries in Southern California. In this homely room, Jim Busuttil — by day a science teacher in El Monte — turns out a variety of unusual and very professionally made liquors, including cherry brandy and a tequila equivalent aged in French oak.
His whiskey, Peregrine Rock, is another West Coast experiment in combining Bourbon and Scotch techniques. The malt comes from Scotland and is lightly peated, but the whiskey is aged partly in new Bourbon barrels. It has some of the fruitiness of the St. George, but its wry edge of smoky flavor makes it feel like a traditional whiskey style — from some undiscovered land. Though Busuttil's plant is a small one, he has a substantial inventory of aging whiskey.
Currently two operations are making whiskey in the Portland area. Clear Creek Distillery, Stephen McCarthy's eau-de-vie distillery, was the second to make a West Coast whiskey. In 1994 McCarthy ran out of fruit and began using a mash brewed for him by neighboring Widmer Bros. Brewery using peat-smoked barley imported from Scotland. McCarthy's whiskey is emphatically Scottish in the most uncompromising style: You'd think it was an ultra-peaty Islay malt like Lagavulin or Laphroaig. Even so, he's not strictly imitating Scotch. After aging his whiskey two or three years in used sherry barrels, as would be done in Scotland, he finishes it in new barrels of Oregon white oak for six to 12 months.
"Oregon winemakers tried white oak for a while," he says, "but they concluded it wasn't suitable for wine. I tried it as a lark and decided I liked what it did to the whiskey — it gave it a richer, more complex character."
Edgefield Distillery in Troutdale, Ore., is the crown jewel among the 50-odd brew pubs, restaurants and inns run by the McMenamin brothers in Oregon and Washington. Distiller Lee Medoff, a former brewer, enjoys a unique luxury — built-in demand. Other distillers struggle to get distributors, but Medoff just sends his product to the company's pubs. "The public has been very receptive," he says. Medoff uses malted barley but ages the whiskey in new Bourbon barrels. His standard product Hogshead is an unpretentious 3-year-old, smooth and light like a young Bourbon, but not as sweet. Next year he will release a richer 5-year-old.
The West Coast whiskey movement continues to grow — Lagunitas and Sweetwater, two distilleries in Petaluma, Calif., currently have whiskey aging. Fish Tale Ale in Seattle is serious enough about getting into distilling to have gotten a Washington state law changed. An outfit called Glenkelley plans to build a distillery near Yosemite where it will even grow its own barley.
The obvious, most lucrative drink for craft distillers to make is flavored vodka, the trendiest spirit of our age. Several do.
Then why make whiskey too? Clearly, it's the allure of creating rare and sophisticated flavors from something as mundane as grain. It's alchemy, bro.