Interview: Spirit Hound Distillers, Craig Engelhorn & Wayne Anderson
A “little” brewery by the name of Oskar Blues brought Craig Engelhorn and Wayne Anderson together. Meeting and working there in the late 1990s/early 2000s, their distillery idea cooked for years before they opened Spirit Hound Distillers in Lyon,...
Interview: Denver Bar Manager, Chad Michael George
St. Louis-born Chad Michael George has been keeping busy the last few years. He oversees the drink menu and staff at Denver’s celebrated The Way Back restaurant and bar and is a partner in the restaurant and consulting group,...
How Do You Define an “American-Style” of Rum?
Rum is the most malleable of spirits. It’s a liquid shape-shifter that can vary by region and culture, from the full-bodied double-retort pot still rums of Jamaica to the grassy agricoles of Martinique to the crisper, dryer rums of...
An excerpt from the book— The Maturation of Distilled Spirits: Vision and Patience
The reduction of alcohol from cask to bottling strength should always be done slowly, with the water and the spirit at the same temperature. Because of the hundreds of components in the alcohol, the assemblage—or blend—needs time to absorb...
A Surge in Craft Bottled-in-Bond Whiskey
Bartenders and bargain hunters have rejoiced in recent years with the return to prominence for bottled-in-bond, or bonded, whiskeys. I’ve long said the best $20 you could spend in a liquor store was on bottom-shelf bonded bourbon. Now, though,...
What’s in a Glass?
Sensory perception is such an intangible thing. There are so many variables at play in evaluating a spirit, from the emotional and environmental factors to our own inherent biases, that it is a wonder that there is any kind...
Native Nuts: Liqueurs and Bitters
As autumn arrives in America, one of the great seasonal pleasures is seeing a scattering of nuts across a path and looking up to see the tree that made them. Nut liqueurs and nut bitters might seem opposite expressions,...
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...
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....
Judging of Craft Spirits
In 2007, when ADI held its first annual spirits competition, there were fewer than 100 craft distilleries in the USA, and the Judging awarded just 12 medals. Eleven years later, the number of craft distillers in the country has...
