Pushing back against the "craft/artisan distillery" concept

Cafe Society
1

It had to happen eventually. “Craft beer” appeared in sea of Miller and Bud. It was salvation from terrible pilsners that all tasted alike and were as weak as water.

So now, “craft distilleries” are appearing in a sea of… Four Roses… and… Laphroaig?!

The analogy doesn’t quite hold up, does it? Nope, not even a bit. Even in the dark, dark ages of beer one could find some excellent booze if one looked.

On the shelves of the liquor store, one can find all manner of underaged bourbons and ryes (many of them distilled by giant MGP right here in Indiana but aged elsewhere and given creative brands–how “craft”) sold for more than fully aged bottom-shelf booze that is superior–such as everything bottled in bond by Heaven Hill.

Heck, do a blind tasting. Put Old Grandad 114 next to most “craft-distilled” bourbons, and people are going to praise the bulldozer rye finish of the OGD and think the craft stuff is mass-produced.

A BIG caveat: I think it’s awesome that there are more distillers out there doing all manner of creative and interesting things. The Few rye whisky is pretty amazing, and it’s aged just for one year (how about two years and making it “straight rye whisky”–or even four, guys?!). Let a zillion flowers bloom. I just want to point out that the implicit analogy with craft brewing is wrong, that there are already so many great spirits out there that deserve exploration and respect, regardless of the volume of production. And I’d like to encourage truth in labeling and bit more aging of the product.

Thoughts?

2

I wish the craft distilleries tried something different. Now, I understand, in terms of money making, you probably want to push out a vodka and a bourbon, but there’s so many good versions of both already out there. (And, as you note, the latter generally takes a few years of time to reach its peak.) I’m usually interested in trying a gin, because gins are all over the place in terms of flavor, and you can come up with a signature balance that does distinguish itself from the rest of the market. If I were a distiller, I’d look into making high quality eau-de-vies with local fruit. Like a kirschwasser from Door County cherries. Or an apple brandy (of the eau-de-vie variety) from one of our signature apples. Or one of our native berries. Something like that. The problem is, there’s little market demand for them, and Americans are generally unfamiliar with this type of drink (although the Central and Eastern Europeans would love it, as they have similar spirits back home.) Also, I would look into interesting liqueurs a la Benedictine or Chartreuse or something of that nature. Something distinctive. It’s a much smaller market, but I think there is potential to create a market there. Hipsters love this sort of shit.

3

I don’t know apple-jack-shit about most distilled alcohols, but I’d like to see the hipster/artisan engagement with them extend to more widespread experiments in home distilling, focusing on those unusual drinks from local/wild crops that pulykamell speaks of.

The sole reason for my interest in any of this is that I once worked with a European colleague who home-distilled an apricot liqueur that was just absolutely and unforgettably delicious. I was too diffident to try to cadge a bottle of it but boy I wish I had.

American spirits drinkers, please start a fashion for experimenting with home distillation of interesting liqueurs and gins and eaux-de-vie made from serviceberries, checkerberries, and all sorts of other interesting native plants, and invite me over for tastings. Thank you.

4

Those are good ideas, lads!

5

How very odd. I was just at a trivia night yesterday at a local craft distiller. I overheard the bartender telling a patron that their gin is not the juniper-heavy flavor that most people are familiar with (which is apparently characteristic of a London dry gin), and they do make an apple brandy there. The place makes a tasty Jack Rose.

And there was a question on Jeopardy! tonight which was the same as in the trivia contest. I think the world is stalking me.

6

Trivia note: FEW is exactly one block from the house where I grew up. They haven’t been open very long. Give them a chance to settle in and keep doing their thing, and maybe they’ll come up with rye nirvana for you. (For full disclosure, I am not remotely a drinker of straight hard liquor of any sort, but have heard positive things about FEW from fri nds who are.)

7

Actually, I just remembered that there are a small number of distilleries that I’m aware of doing this. There’s this old-man’s drink called Jeppson’s Malort here in Chicago. Malort is basically wormwood steeped in vodka or grain alcohol. It’s a very one dimensional drink, with that dimension being BITTER. Now, I like the stuff well enough, and my father loves it because it reminds him of an alcoholic version of wormwood tea they would drink in Poland for upset tummies (and I remember growing up with it, too.)

Anyhow, I’m digressing. This stuff, sometime in the 2000s, started getting traction among the hipster community. Malort’s started marketing around the fact that it’s, um, an acquired taste, and it somehow became a bit of a “challenge” drink in bars in Chicago. Now, it’s become sort of rite of passage here.

Now, there’s several distilleries making fancified versions of this drink with more flavors in them, but still staying true to the base taste.

8

I push back by pronouncing artisanal as art-is-anal …

9

Disobedient Spirits is a local craft distillery that I like to visit primarily for their atmosphere and attitude. We go there and drink, play Jenga and other games they supply, and learn about the “art” of mixing drinks.

On my last visit I was yearning for a Bloody Mary, which got one of the bartenders going. He made a Bloody Mary using bottled mix and had us each try a few sips of the drink. Not bad; I would have been happy with it. He dumped it down the drain. Then he made another Bloody from scratch, discussing each ingredient and how best to utilize it. Man, that was incredible. Like night and day.

10

I agree one billion percent. I was browsing the bourbon aisle at Total Wine last weekend and it’s now a baffling array of never seen before products that are all essentially marketing exercises in selling the same sourced under aged crap bordering on lighter fluid.

And I’m not happy with most of the majors either. Now that they’ve burned through the glut I’ve over production from the 80s and 90s, they see a window of opportunity to release ever more unobtainable ‘special’ editions while allowing the mainlineproduct quality to drop, since all the good barrels are being split of off for high priced bottlings. That OGD 114 I so love is in all probability going to dissapear so they can use those barrels to release an older version of Basil Hayden, which I have no doubt they’ll fuck up in some way.

I switched to mostly buying Armagnacs along with a handful of American brandies. And now I see those, and other fruit spirits are being touted as the next big thing in articles all over Facebook. Shit! What am I going to move to next? I need to find something so unpalatable that it can NEVER catch on and learn to like it.

11

So there are fruit brandies out there? Awesome. I feel like I’m about five to ten years ahead of the next popular drink, now if I could only use my powers for profit. :slight_smile: what are some good American brandies to look out for?

12

First off, you might want to join our FB group, Serious Brandy. Steve Ury runs that page and is the font from which all knowledge flows.

Germain Robin: Mendocino county distiller of many brandies, grappa, bunch of other stuff I’ve not seen. Their brandies, especially their XO (FedEd bringing me a new bottle today!) are tremendous, and have for some time gotten a lot of buzz as matching or exceeding the quality of the top French Cognac producers. Their story is interesting and well documented on youtube and wherever, but they have broken with tradition and distill from varieties of grapes that would never be used in France. The Cognac and Armagnac regions grow relatively crappy grapes that make poor wine, hence the emphasis on distillation. Germain Robin uses Pinot Noir, Semillion, Viogner and a bunch of other wine quality grapes, distills manually and then ages the hell out of them.

Osocalis: Santa Cruz area. Not too dissimilar story as GR above, very highly regarded. I haven’t had a bottle of their product since I really started paying attention to brandy so I don’t have a lot of personal experience, but am now on the lookout

Copper and Kings: Kentucky (!) brandy. They’re like the High West of American brandy. They are admittedly sourcing aged pot-still brandy, but then running their own aging program, using old bourbon barrels. I got their Butchertown brandy a couple of weeks ago. It it totally non-traditional and is a bridge between bourbon and brandy. Delicious and I love it. And it’s barrel proof, so you can either go for the full bruiser experience or add a little water and enjoy the subtleties.

Clear Creek: Portland, I know them best for their beautiful Eau de Vies.

Lairds: Back east somewhere. Been around forever and respected for their excellent apple brandies, especially on the older end of the spectrum. I understand that they have some younger product that’s a little more rough and tumble, but that can be fun too.

St George: Alameda. They make two fantastic gins and one I can’t choke down, but I first heard of them for there pear brandy. Good stuff, they now have a raspberry brandy too. Haven’t seen it yet.

I’ll probably think of more once I’m not at my computer cause that’s how my brain works, but this is a start.

http://marketwatchmag.com/american-brandy-enjoys-a-renaissance/

13

I think it is useful to look at the market for wines. We don’t have a problem with 1,000,000 small wineries, and thousands of bottles piling up on our store shelves.

As is notes in the OP, we’ve recently seen the same explosion with craft beer. So why not distilled spirits too? As with wine and craft beer, there is a lot of the same-same out there (IPA? You PA? We all PA!) So what if there are 1,000 locally made mostly similar Ryes to choose from.

Granted, the consumption velocity of wine and beer is often greater than distilled spirits, and the price points support that, but you get my drift.

14

To my mind the difference is that the competition in the wine and beer space is increasing the overall average quality of product available. Almost all of the craft whiskies on the shelves are inferior to what was out there before and are dragging down the average. Add to that the complete obfuscation of who’s making what product and you’re left with a baffling mess in the bourbon aisle.

There are precious few distilleries producing in actual volume, and even fewer a few years ago when the product on the shelves today was made. I mean, in my example of browsing at Total Wine, there were probably 20 different brands that I could easily identify as all being from the same industrial supplier mentioned above, MGP in Lawrenceburg Indiana. Of course all of them do their best to hide that fact with flowery origin stories that emphasize the ‘local’ nature of the spirit. Bullshit, it came in a tanker truck from Indiana.

Rye’s just as bad. I probably could find ten “uber premium, hand crafted” ryes all from the mega-distillery, Alberta Springs. Those that didn’t come from there? MGP again.

The thick layer of marketing that has to be applied to sell the same sourced mediocre spirits for big premium prices is a massive turn off for me.

15

I just wish the craft beer industry knew 23 other letters.

16

I’m with you on that. It was fun for a while but now it’s just plain old. I make a lot of trips to Firestone Walker’s experimental barrel-aging and souring cellar. That’s all I need these days.

17

SHHHHHH. Heaven Hill doesn’t produce oceans of Bourbon; if these guys drink it all up there’s less around for me.

It’s bad enough that a lot of the wine shops of Snob Brooklyn have stopped carrying it because it’s “cheap.” I don’t need to compete with hordes of SD hipsters snatching up my delicious, delicious Heaven Hill from the shops which still keep it on the shelf.

(The Heaven Hill distillery also makes Rittenhouse Rye Whiskey, which I think is skanky. I prefer the old-school punch of Old Overholt Rye.)

18

Hear, hear! Maybe I romanticize the Old Overcoat a bit, associating it with the bottle hard-drinking journalists would keep locked away in their desks for that mid-afternoon or mid-morning tipple, but that’s still my go-to everyday rye.

19

I’ve been enjoying some of the craft gins. When I get up, I’ll capture a few names and notes and post them to the thread. I agree that the ones I tend to like are fruitier and less juniper heavy (not London/traditional gins).

Anyone know if there’s a tasting group for gin that anyone is running?

20

Blech! You guys can keep that crap. If I’m drinking a cheap rye, it’s likely Pikesville (from Ike’s beloved Heaven Hill). If I’m having a Manhattan, then it’s the Rittenhouse.

It’s not so artisan, but has anybody else fallen in love with Tin Cup? It’s a blend, mainly a high-rye whiskey from MGP, with a healthy amount of Stranahan’s in the mix. It’s become my new everyday tipple.