Absinthe, part II

Well, we have our absinthe label approved as of last month and have about 400 liters of still-strength spirit "resting" (the TTB doesn't allow us to call it aging) and have received our new absinthe labels. We have also made a few test bottlings to see how the new label looks. So far the absinthe tastes wonderful. We could not be happier with the results. We plan on doing another run of the absinthe and gin this upcoming weekend. Maggie Dutton of the Seattle Weekly came by last week to take a look at our distillery. Hopefully you'll be able to read something about Pacific Distillery in the near future. Also, there is a brief feature by Anna Roth concerning our distillery and Pacifique Absinthe in this month's Seattle Metropolitan magazine. Unfortunately they botched the picture by showing the bartender lighting absinthe on fire at the Polar Bar in downtown Seattle's Arctic Club Hotel. I need to pay those guys a visit and show them how to serve an absinthe.Oh well, at least my name was spelled correctly. Also, for you gin fans, Liberty Bar in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood now has our Voyager Single-Batch Distilled Gin in their bar!!! They are the first commercial bar in Washington to offer our gin to you fine folks. Zig-Zag near Seattle's Pike Place Market should soon have Voyager on their bar also. I strongly suggest you visit these fine establishments and order a Voyager Martini! We'll keep you posted as more bars pick up our fine spirits.

UPDATE! Maggie Dutton's article has just been published in the Seattle Weekly. Here's the link:

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2009-01-07/food/and-then-there-were-two/

Absinthe Pacifique

Well, our Absinthe Pacifique has been in the tank for about a month now. We have almost 200 liters in the aging tank and we are planning on another 200 liter distillation in the next two weeks. For those of you who are interested, our Absinthe Pacifique has been made in exact accordance with an 1855 French recipe, using only organically-grown botanicals. Much of the Grande wormwood and Roman wormwood used was grown in our own herb garden. We hope to have our label approval within the next few weeks and to begin bottling.

WSBG Event

We recently had the opportunity to meet with some of the best bartending professionals at the inaugural meeting of the Washington State Bartenders Guild held last Sunday in Seattle. It was a priveledge and an honor to meet so many persons dedicated to the furthering of cocktail culture here in Washington State. We also had a chance to discuss the marketing of our Voyager Single-Batch Distilled Gin with many of those in attendance. I would like to thank Andrew Friedman of Liberty Bar in Seattle, Zane and Anu for their hospitality, and for inviting Pacific Distillery to this important event. For further information regarding the guild go to: www.wsbg.org

Our first bottling of Voyager Gin

Yesterday we bottled our first batch of Voyager Single-Batch Distilled Gin. In addition to our family helping out we had a few volunteers with the work. The first part of the process was to bring the still strength gin from 156 proof down to the drinking strength of 84 proof. This was done by blending in purified water and testing it for proof.

The next step was to fill the bottles. The newly proofed spirit is now pulled through via a sterile filter into the bottle filler. The picture below shows us filling a test bottle to insure accurate filling of the bottles.

The next step is to actually fill and hand cork the bottles.

The next part of the process is to apply our labels. Here you see my daughter Anastasia applying the labels.

The next step is to seal the bottles and place them into cases.

And here's the finished product. Feel free to go to your local liquor store and ask them to stock our fine Voyager Single-Batch Distilled Gin.

First Commercial Distillation

Well, last Saturday, September 27, we completed our first run of Voyager Single-Batch Distilled Gin. The still worked marvelously with no flaws. It was a unique experience to taste the varied flavors as they came across. The flavor was nothing short of fantastic. We had a good number of visitors and neighboring area commercial vintners dropping by for a visit We now have about 20 cases worth of uncut gin in storage and plan to make another distillation run in the near future. For those of you in Washington State, please go to your local liquor store and ask the manager to consider stocking our fine gin. Feel free to print the label below to show the manager or your favorite local bar/restaurant that our product does exist, and is available soon. We will have it available for the WSLCB (Washington State Liquor Control Board) to special order it within the next two weeks. Unlike many other states, Washington does not give preference to in-state distillers, brewers, or vintners in bringing in their products to market in their state stores. It appears that we can't even attend a listing meeting until this January. On the other hand, states like Oregon have a much more progressive attitude in helping to promote locally made alcoholic beverages.

Our new label

Here is a copy of our recently TTB approved gin label.

Voyager Single-Batch Distilled Gin

With our Federal and Washington State licensing behind us we have turned our attention to getting TTB (Federal government) formula approval for our Voyager Gin and Pacifique Absinthe. I spoke to our formulation agent this morning and he states that our gin formula is in the final stage of approval and we should have our hard copy by the end of this week. If all goes well we plan on distilling our first batch of gin by the September 27th. The absinthe is going to take a little more work for the approval process. We plan on submitting our absinthe laboratory sample and formula to the TTB next week. Our original aim was to have our gin ready for market by the end of October, but it appears that we are probably looking more towards the end of November.