Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Our new still


Here's a picture of our new handmade, 500 liter copper alembic still. As I type this it is winging its way to our distillery. The still is manufactured by Destillarias Eau de Vie (copper-alembic.com) of Portugal. My thanks to David and Jose for sending me this picture.

Monday, May 19, 2008

This has nothing to do with the distillery...

...but we wanted to share with all of you.
Our family went to the University District Street Fair yesterday (each year a springtime street fair is held in Seattle's University district). During our visit we went into "Gargoyle." Gargoyle is a shop that specializes in unique fantasy art and such. On display is a show featuring a selection of wonderful drawings and paintings from local Seattle artist Trinity Stone. There was a wonderful absinthe-themed portait based upn a famous Belle Epoque advertising print by Charles Maire. The show runs through this month and we encourage you to visit.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Dedication to quality

Well, we've put the knowledge we've accumulated over the years of running our small family herb business to good use. We have begun sampling varieties of botanicals that we will be using in our artisan distilled gin and absinthe. Botanical samplings from around the world have been coming in, that's in addtion to what we've been growing ourselves in our own place. We strongly believe that to make world-class products, you must search the world for the best ingredients. The botanicals in our products will be not only some that we grow ourselves, but will include those from faraway places like Italy, France, Spain, Sri Lanka, Asia and North Africa. Our alcohol will be of the purest USP grade. It wouldn't make much sense to source the best botanicals when you're using inferior spirits now would it? We can't tell you how disappointing it is to sample a new spirit that you have been waiting for only to find that the makers have cut corners in materials to save a few bucks, or they haven't captured the essence of what the spirit should taste like, or the base alcohol isn't recitifed (pure) enough and muddles the flavor of the spirit. Clear, clean, and pure alcohol is essential to making gin and absinthe. We will always source the best materials for our spirits.
On the equipment front we have taken possession of our new mixing and storage vats, imported from Italy. We are still on track to have our still delivered by the first week of June. We've installed the sinks and water piping for the still condensor yesterday.