Touring and tasting at the NYC distillery’s new Brooklyn Navy Yard locale
“People are often expecting something more intense from the moonshine,” said Kings County Distillery co-owner Colin Spoelman as he passed out samples of the signature clear, unaged white corn whiskey made at his Brooklyn-based micro-distillery. The tasting took place at the end of a recent tour of the distillery’s…
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LA bartender Matt Biancaniello whips up a sweet summer cocktail with a new liqueur
From Heaven Hill Distilleries, makers of Elijah Craig whiskey and Rittenhouse Straight Rye, comes Mariposa, the first agave nectar liqueur on the market. Mariposa, which is concocted from 100% agave tequila and premium vodka, is named for the Spanish word for butterfly, paying tribute to the Monarch species indigenous to the Tequila region of Mexico. With an aroma of gardenias and rose oil, the liqueur makes for a highly mixable ingredient for sweet cocktails. For those wishing to limit or eliminate processed sugars from their diets, agave has become a popular alternative, and bartenders have found agave to be a helpful substitute for simple syrup and honey.
Bartender Matt Biancaniello of the Library Bar at the Roosevelt Hotel in LA created a special cocktail with Mariposa that incorporates the flavors of summer. Biancaniello fills his bar with the freshest ingredients from no fewer than three local farmers markets every week, and strives to create new combinations from seasonal flavors he finds. Inspired by the Nicholas Family Farms blueberry juice, Biancaniello bucked his usual habit for intricate, ingredient-rich cocktails to blend a simple recipe that can be easily replicated at home.
2 ounces Mariposa
3/4 ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce fresh blueberry juice
Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker, fill with ice. Shake and strain into an Old Fashioned glass over a large ice cube. Garnish with fresh blueberries and a slice of lime. (Alternative options: pomegranate or grape juice would also work well with the floral notes in the Mariposa.)
Mariposa is currently launching across the US this summer, and will be available for $25.
Two cocktail recipes from the Brooklyn-based purveyors of craft bitters
With a mission to “make the world a bitter place,” Hella Bitter is a brand of bitters focused on creating fine, hand-crafted cocktail accompaniments. The name and the attitude of irreverence are evidence of the brand’s Bay Area roots—the company may have ditched the former logo personality of a well-dressed gent sporting a “thizz face”, but their origins remain a major influence. Operating out of Brooklyn, Hella Bitter is part of a growing community of enthusiasts looking to take craft cocktails to boozy new heights.
Fine ingredients and small-batch production help to distinguish Hella. Departing slightly from the norm, their aromatic bitters use a wormwood rather than an angostura base (a detail based more on preference than quality), and caramelized sugar gives a rich color and viscosity. Hella’s citrus bitters can substitute garden variety orange bitters, and the company occasionally releases off-the-wall seasonal varieties, such as a vanilla kumquat creation. While made to compliment cocktails, Hella Bitter encourages people to dilute their bitters in a glass of seltzer for a refreshing dram.
We recently enlisted Hella’s help to come up with a duo of cocktails for CH readers. The two tequila concoctions below are ideal for knocking a few back during a sun-filled happy hour.
1.5 oz Reposado Tequila
2 healthy dashes of Hella Bitter Citrus
0.5 oz Green Chartreuse
0.5 oz Maraschino
0.5 oz Fresh Lime
Use a jigger to measure out tequila, chartreuse, and lime over ice. Add Hella Bitter. Shake and strain into a coupe glass pre-garnished a with premium grade maraschino cherry.
2.0 oz Reposado Tequila
2 healthy dashes of Hella Bitter Citrus
1.5 oz Mild Black Tea
0.5 oz Green Chartreuse
0.5 oz Fresh Lime
0.5 oz simple syrup
Stirred tequila, tea, chartreuse, lime, and simple syrup in an iced highball. Add Hella Bitter. Garnish with a lemon wheel.
Hella Bitter is now available on Fab through 13 July, and via their online store.
Imbibe in the power of Icelandic birch with these two smooth spirits
Created by the co-owners of Reykjavik’s renowned Dill restaurant, Björk liqueur and Birkir snaps boast a uniquely smooth, earthy flavor thanks to the Icelandic duo’s clever use of indigenous flora. During spring, sommelier Ólafur Örn Ólafsson and chef Gunnar Karl Gíslason gather felled birch limbs from the half-century-old forest at the foot of the Haukafell Mountain, and infuse the branches’ natural aroma into the spirits at their Foss Distillery. Known for its rejuvenating qualities, birch—even in its potable form—is also believed to benefit skin and hair, and stimulate your libido.
The honey coloring, sweet taste and subtle nose provide a novel alternative for casual sipping and mixed drinks. Traditionally enjoyed as a shot during meals, the refreshing Birkir snaps is defined by robust floral flavor reminiscent of pine trees. On the other hand, the slightly lighter Björk liqueur
trades in a bit of its birch flavor for more sugar. This rich liqueur is best served in cocktail form to compliment the rich sweetness. Ólafsson explains on their website, “I wanted to capture the sensation of the bright Icelandic summer night at the moment when the rainshower clears and the morning dew sets on the birch clad hill.”
The tall, slender bottles fit into the arboreal theme with a rustic, leaf-adorned label and a birch branch floating in the caramel-colored liquor within. Due to strict alcohol distribution regulations in Iceland all Foss Distillery spirits are only available domestically through local bars or at the Keflavik Airport Duty Free.
Images by Karen Day and Graham Hiemstra
Iceland’s small-batch spirit distilled over lava rocks
Only a handful of components are necessary for making Reyka vodka: a grain spirit made from quality wheat and barley, water, geothermal energy, lava rock filtration and a custom-crafted, copper Carter-Head still. The incredibly smooth spirit is the upshot of Iceland’s pristine environment, which affords the distillery an extremely pure brewing process. We recently had the chance to meet with Reyka’s master distiller Kristmar Olafsson in Borgarnes, who shed greater insight on their small-batch production.
Steam produced by molten rock is funneled in a stainless steel pipe to the distillery, where it heats Olafsson’s beautiful Carter-Head gin still, which was handcrafted in Scotland. One of only six in the world, Reyka’s earns the unique distinction of being the only one used for crafting vodka. This gives Olafsson the advantage of controlling the spirit’s path, manually manipulating the machine throughout the process and capturing only the best part of the spirit for bottling. Traditional vodka stills force the distiller to use the entire spirit from beginning to end, and in order to remove impurities it has to be distilled again.
“When we start to distill—this is just like when you’re boiling water in the kitchen—the vapors start to rise up when the spirit is close to 100 degrees [celsius], and we keep it inside the tower here in the beginning because when the vapors start to rise up it passes through a lot of copper pipes. Everything is created just to remove impurities from the spirit, and we distillate, or boil it, for about 30-40 minutes and keep it always inside the tower. The lightest ingredients stay in the upper part of the still, and that’s the part we are removing from the spirit. These are the impurities that give it a bad taste and bad smell.”
Olafsson removes about 30-40 liters of impure liquid in this initial process, which is simply discarded. He knows when the time is up by his expert sense of smell, and the remaining desirable vapor is pushed to another tower in the still, cooled down for a bit and returned to a liquid state. They then distill about 1,200 liters of 96% alcohol for five or six hours, resulting in the spirit that is used for Reyka later on. The last 250 liters is significantly weaker at around 35% alcohol, which they separate and use for flavor-infused vodkas like Opal Red.
To bring the spirit down to a more drinkable 80 proof, they blend it with water from the nearby Grábrók spring, ideally located on a 4,000-year-old lava field. This is then run through actual lava rocks—which they change about every three months—for the ultimate in natural filtration.
One taste of Reyka vodka and it’s clear that something is different. It feels silky on the palate, and the clean flavor is easily sipped neat. Currently the eight-person team at Reyka is producing around only 400,000 bottles a year, but Olafsson hopes to increase this over time, slowly but surely. His distribution approach is not unlike that of his distillation process, both the result of extreme patience and well-earned instinct.
You can purchase Reyka at shops throughout the U.S. and U.K. (as well as in Iceland) for around $20 a 750ml bottle.
See more images in the slideshow. Photos by Karen Day
The newest addition to the California wine merchant’s exclusive collection of specially bottled spirits
When David Driscoll of K&L Wine Merchants happened upon an experimental barrel of gin at Alameda, CA-based distillery St. George, one sip prompted a special request to add it to the Faultline series, a small collection of spirits bottled exclusively for the liquor retailer.
Driscoll teamed up with St. George’s Dave Smith and Lance Winters to bring to K&L the special gin, which is characterized by the addition of a few macerated ingredients and some extra filtering. The collaboration also led to the new Faultine Gin label on the run’s 900 bottles. The imagery on the label is inspired by vintage botanical textbooks drawings and features a layout similar to a vintage certificate or bank note.
Faultline Gin stays with the herbaceous flavor profile of St. George gins, though not as overtly botanical as Botanivore and not as savory as the Mt. Tam. Driscoll notes the gin’s harmonious flavor in a well-mixed martini, giving credit to St. George distiller Dave Smith for this latest iteration of the classic spirit.
“Driscoll has the nasty little habit of skulking around distilleries with a crazy straw,” says Winters. “He’s been a great supporter of what we do at St. George. While we were in the process of developing our St. George gins—Botanivore, Terroir, and Dry Rye Gin—Dave would come by the distillery and sample to see how things were coming along. It was on one of these visits that he fell in love with one of the gins that we made to test out some of the botanicals and asked if there might be away to convince us to bottle it for K&L.”
The name Faultine evolved from the desire to connect K&L’s northern and the southern California stores. The K&L spirits team carefully selects each spirit to offer their customers the unique opportunity to taste some their rare discoveries.
The St. George gin comes as the third Faultline limited release by K&L, following a Little Mill 21-year-old single malt found in a warehouse on Islay and a Paul Marie & Fils cognac.
Faultline Gin 750ml is now available exclusively at K&L for $35. Keep an eye out for the next Faultline, a 20-year-old Cragenmore single malt, that will be available soon.
Design Bridge redesigns the bottle, bringing back a touch of heritage
Next time you reach for Plymouth Gin, you’ll notice their newly redesigned bottle. A welcomed transformation from the tall, square-shaped vessel with a navy blue and silver color scheme to a rounded antique-style shape and distinctive oval label—the trademark Mayflower stamp remains—the new bottle still houses the same gin made in the same single Victorian copper still since 1793.
When Pernod Ricard asked Design Bridge to redesign the Plymouth Gin bottle, their team delved into the company’s archives for inspiration. The goal: to create a bottle that would not only stand out on the shelf behind a bar, but also tell the story of the spirit in an authentic way. This process led them to focus on Plymouth’s rich heritage and to codify a thematic idea for the project, “Looking Back to Look Forward”.
According to the historical record, the pilgrim fathers spent their last night in the Black Friars Distillery where Plymouth later began production in the 18th century. With this in mind, Design Bridge made the Mayflower more prominent on the new label.
Below the ship reads the caption, “In 1620 The Mayflower set sail from Plymouth on a journey of hope and discovery,” the additional focus taking the bottle design closer to earlier versions of the logo. Design Bridge spared no detail, creating a copper cap to depict Plymouth’s original 1793 gin still, while the uneven glass bottle shape is meant to look like it fell out of the back pocket of a 19th century sailor.
Plymouth Gin is available in its new bottle online as well as liquor stores throughout the world for prices starting around $33. Learn more about Plymouth Gin in our video tour of the 214-year-old facility with master distiller Sean Harrison.
La marque de rhum “The Kraken Black Spiced Rum” a demandé à l’agence new-yorkaise Dead As We Know It et au studio Adam Gault de penser leur publicité. Une mise en scène des illustrations de Steven Noble et racontant la possibilité de l’existence du Kraken.
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Scotch whisky manually mixed for smooth flavor from a blend of three malts
As one of the few remaining whisky distilleries in the world still using manual mixing techniques during the production process, Monkey Shoulder makes a rich and uniquely flavorful blend. This hands-on turning of the barley was once known to cause a temporary ailment for which this whisky is named. Monkey Shoulder has adopted the same time-tested techniques under better working conditions—and without the risk of injury—to create their signature triple malt Scotch whisky. The spirit has been available in its native U.K. for some time, but just recently launched in the U.S. in January 2012.
The first distillery to blend three malts, Monkey Shoulder is made from a trio of fine Speyside single malts—Glenfiddich, Balvenie, Kininvie. Once selected, the malts are left to mature in bourbon casks for a length of time only the “malt master” knows. This process lends the whisky subtle, but distinct smokey notes of oak that compliment the spirit’s naturally sweet vanilla and brown sugar flavors. Each batch contains just 27 individually taste-tested casks to keep quality consistently up to grade.
Monkey Shoulder is now available in the U.S. from select Chicago stores and online nationwide at the brand’sBinny’s for $30 per 750ml bottle. For more information on the production process and for heaps of inventive cocktail recipes head to e-shop.
Stockholm’s only microbrewery mixes creative enthusiasm and culinary expertise with modern results
Giving Stockholm its first and only microbrewery, friends Niklas Hjelm and Magnus Mårdberg opened Södra Maltfabriken in mid-2011. Besides a bit of experience in home brewing, Hjelm, an award-winning digital creative director, and Mårdberg, a successful chef and restaurateur, bring to the operation a refreshingly unique point of view.
Blending creativity and a well-honed palette, the small company has quickly gained a reputation for properly quenching the demand for quality, high-end beers in Sweden. “Magnus started to see his diners asking for beers, as well as wine, to go with their meals,” explains Hjelm. “So he wondered if his palette might translate from cooking to brewing.”
Sweden’s larger producers are known for producing high-quality ales, and the nationalized, government-run liquor chain, Systembolaget is the only outlet authorized to sell anything containing more than 3.5% alcohol to the public during very strict opening hours, setting the bar high for the fledgling small-batch brewers. “Although we’ve both done a bit of home brewing, it’s not as simple as just increasing the ingredients and amounts,” says Hjelm. “You’ve got to show the establishment that you can actually make good beer—there is a legacy of strong Swedish ale brewing to match up to. We want to show this in a different way to a new audience, an audience which you’ve got to work hard for all the time and in every respect both in terms of taste and aesthetic.”
Södra’s label design, for one, showcases this progressive approach. Working with designer Hanna Werning, the microbrewery has created its distinct look with a subtle combination of form and color for each of the three ales. “People are beginning to swap a bottle of wine for a good, attractive, well-designed beer,” says Hjelm. “What we try and do is make sure that the beer looks refined on the table and that the design looms strong in the customers mind as a reminder of the specific Södra taste.”
At present Södra Maltfabriken offers Rude Lager, a rich-tasting beer from Perle, Saaz and Cascade hops with a twang of Amarillo, an IPA called Poking, which is a deep and powerful tipple with a 7.5% alcohol content to put some hair on the chest, and a clean, refined pale ale—Initial—which marks the real jewel in the crown.
Hjelm also tells us that a couple of extra blends are in the pipeline, including his own personal favorite, a brown ale that would add nicely to an already very mature selection. As the passionate creative partnership expands, so does its very real potential to give the bigger brands a bit of a lesson in modern tastes.
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