A Dialogue on Distilling
Download 1 January 2002 Issue
Steve McCarthy is the owner of Clear Creek Distillery in Portland, OR, which has
been producing artisanal spirits since 1984. Starting with an eau-de-vie made from
Bartlett pears grown on this family’s orchards in Hood River, McCarthy...
The Simple Pot Still
Download 14 January 2004 Issue
In the early days of distilling essential oils for medicine and fra grances, the simple pot-still was the only tool available to the chemist. By slowly heating a liquid sample and collecting the vapor, the compound was...
The Original Water of Life
From their first appearance in written history, distilled spirits in medieval Europe were called aqua vitae — Latin for “water of life.” Many languages share names with the same meaning: the French eau de vie, Scandinavian aquavit, and even...
