Making Sense of Sorghum Rum
Sorghum spirits are the shape-shifters of the distilling world. In the liquor aisle you can find sorghum rum, sorghum whiskey, and products labeled simply as “sorghum spirits.” Sorghum appears to be neither fish nor fowl, but some miracle plant...
Flavoring Whiskey
It takes years of aging to make whiskey in accordance with accepted definitions, so if you’ve done it right, why would you add anything else to it?
The simple answer: Because alongside rye whiskey, which has been in a barrel...
Apple Brandy
Various ‘testimonials’ could be gathered showing that George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, George Fox and other personages either made, drank, or sold apple brandy or did all three or express themselves upon the merits of it, but it...
Cinchona Bark
Introduction
Cinchona is a genus of evergreen tree in the Rubiaceae (coffee) family, native to the Andean forests of South America and naturalized north into parts of Mesoamerica. However, most of the global supply is cultivated in Southeast Asia.
History
In the...
The Fixative Effect
A bartender serves up an ice-cold Martini. (If it helps you visualize the scene, let’s say it’s a 7:2 ratio, served up with a twist. Stirred, naturally.) The customer chose a bright, citrus-forward gin. She takes in the beautiful...
Juice, Peel & Pith
How can a single fruit provide three contrasting flavors, extractable separately or in combination? Easily enough when it is a citrus fruit, and those flavors are held in discrete, divisible layers.
Lemons descend from a noble, versatile family of fruits....
Looking to the Future of American Brandy
Brandy was produced in the United States when the country-to-be was but a ramshackle collection of colonies. In fact, Laird’s has stood the test of time and remains three centuries later as the oldest family-owned distillery in the U.S....
Desert Door Unlocks Secrets of Sotol for the U.S. Market
For ages, sotol has been the regional vaquero drink in the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango and Coahuila while merely a popular style of moonshine in west Texas. Desert Door Distillery in Driftwood, TX, aims to change that by...
South African Gin
Given the intricate blend of cultures and wealth of natural biomes scattered across 470,000 square miles (1.2 million km²) of land, it should come as no surprise that South Africa is a pioneer within the realm of booze. Many...
