Book Review: Chasing the White Dog

I recently finished reading Chasing the White Dog by Max Watman, published in 2010. “White dog” is the term used for unaged whiskey, as all distilled spirits are clear until they have been aged in wood barrels, which is when the spirit turns gold. Watman takes you through moonshine history, research, interviews, and his own attempts at making moonshine. And when I say “moonshine,” I mean not licensed for distilling.

The book is laid out in such a way that Watman takes you through a chapter with his interviews, history, and research, followed by another chapter about his own personal experience. The quality of the two is so vastly different when read by somebody who does homebrewing and makes wine and cider read it. Watman’s research side is thorough, entertaining, and sometimes even poetic. He makes an excellent history book writer. However, juxtaposed to his own personal experience, he seems to have skipped doing research on fermentation. He is so anxious to distill that it is like he learned to run before he learned to walk, and he doesn’t understand why he is having problems distilling as a result. For example, my biggest problem happens when he attempts to make hard cider to distill into “apple jack.” Wrong – applejack is cold distillation. What he is doing is making apple eau da vie. He says the cider stinks, which he doesn’t know could have been avoided with the use of yeast nutrient. He thinks he has a ruined batch after about maybe a month, and procrastinating for another two months or longer, is surprised when it becomes clear and tastes better. That’s because cider really should not be consumed before three months, and if he waited nine months total, it would be even better yet. This holds true for any wine. I will give him points for knowing that adding sugar to apple juice to make cider will not gain him any friends among the craft-distillers with that method.

However, if you can get past his trials, he does a considerable amount of research on moonshine history and how today’s perception came about. He also researched court cases and sits in one one, and tours the areas that these happen. What is kind of neat is that he also attempts to find people who drink moonshine along with those who enforce laws and do NASCAR. These stories are all very amusing and he manages to write some poetic lines, though sometimes he gets a little off topic.

If you know nothing about making beer and wine, then I think you will find Chasing the White Dog an entertaining read about modern East Coast liquor enforcement. If you do know something about making beer and wine, then I think you will find this book entertaining with a dash of annoyance.

Meme Cat

Legal Notes of Home Distilling

I had said before that distilling alcohol is illegal here in the United States because of safety reasons due to fusel alcohols. However, on my recent trip to Pacific Distillery, they believe it is illegal to distill without a license has to do with taxation. They said that tax on beer and wine is low at $0.05 for a 12 oz beer can, $0.21 for a 750 mL wine bottle, but hard alcohol is charged $2.14 for 750 mL of 80 proof spirit.  I calculated that tax per serving, so it is still $0.05 for beer, about $0.04 for a serving of wine, and $0.13 per serving of hard alcohol. So in the government’s mind, the tax revenue lost to homebrewers is small, but the tax revenue lost to home distillers would be massive.

However, in New Zealand, spirit sales were down, and due to some loopholes in the law, the cost of enforcing distillation laws were becoming too costly, so in 1996, New Zealand made home distillation legal. What happened? Pacific Distillery said spirit sales soared (I have been unable to confirm this), and tax revenue went up. Speculation is that people began buying more out of stores to taste test against their own products, just like how there are probably more breweries in areas where there are more homebrewers: people want to see what other people do. I actually expect something like this phenomenon to happen with the increase of home cheese making to drive sales up in craft cheeses.

Further reading:

• Legal Considerations for Home Distillation
• Legal
• TTB
• Liquor Centre Group (the number of outlet growth was highest 1996-1997)
• New Zealand Consumer Price Index
• New Zealand – Beers of Our Lives
• Facts about Alcohol

Pacific Distillery

I was visiting Everett, WA a few weekends ago. We had a little down time, so I got out my Tour Map and looked at places near by. Attention seemed to settle on Woodinville, and while everyone has probably been to a winery before, not everyone has been to a distillery. A few phone calls and website visits, and we decided to go to Pacific Distillery, which does craft gin and absinthe production.

Pacific Distillery is set up in a little commercial building where they have a door and a garage door. It turns out there were a few wineries in the adjacent buildings, too. They had a pot still set up and were in the process of distilling the tails on a batch of absinthe, and had the garage door open for ventilation per the fire marshal’s request.

When e got there, the founder Marc Bernhard had stepped out for a bit, so his partner gave us a little bit of a tour until Marc could get back to give us the official tour.

In order to distill, one first has to ferment something. Fermented beer is distilled into whiskey, distilled wine is brandy, and other spirits such as tequila come from fermented agave plants, vodka from fermented potatoes, and rum from fermented sugar cane. Pacific Distillery had a neat little display table out showing the herbs they used in their product, so I asked how long it takes them to ferment. I was quickly corrected: gin and absinthe are not fermented, but is instead a base spirit that has been infused with herbs. In the case of Pacific Distillery, they buy pharmaceutical grade ethanol, which has been distilled more times and is purer than food grade everclear. They then infuse it for awhile with some additional water, and then distill it again. Marc said that not everyone who makes gin distills again, indicating it was an inferior product to his.

Pacific Distillery did not have a license to allow us to taste their product, so I just have to take their word for it that their gin has a milder juniper taste, but instead many other herbs come though. Marc said it was a lot like Plymouth gin. Marc said that their absinthe is made from an old recipe.

Pacific Distillery’s products, Pacifique Absinthe Verte and Voyager Dry Gin, can be found in any Washington State Liquor Store and some liquor stores in Portland. I didn’t think to ask him at the time his opinion of I-1100 and I-1105, but I imagine the current system for him, as a craft distiller (not a winery or brewery) is quite nice and he would have opposed them. If I understand the system correctly, he would sell to the State, and the State distributes his product throughout the state to its stores. However, Marc said the real trick was trying to get bartenders to use his product.

A Cidery’s Desire to Distill for Pommeau

Wandering Aengus Ciderworks produces a dessert drink Pommeau. Ben Watson’s Cider Hard and Sweet describes Pommeau as a Calvados or clear apple brandy blended with fresh sweet cider to produce a lightly sweet, reddish amber liqueur around 16-18% alcohol by volume. Wandering Aengus Ciderworks describes their Pommeau as:

“Pommeau is a unique apple dessert wine. Select heirloom cider apple varieties were fermented and then distilled. The resulting apple brandy, after aged 5 years in oak, was expertly blended with fresh juice from cider apples that offer diverse character – those with a wealth of tannins and those with plentiful sugars. Pommeau is a delicately sweet, surprisingly smooth, aromatic wine with an incredible brandy essence. Serve chilled or warm and enjoy as an aperitif, a dessert or with a meal. Production of only 100 cases every other year.”

In a way, this is very much like a Port Wine or Sherry, which is wine fortified with, or has added, grape brandy, but in this case, they are using apple juice and apple brandy.

When I was at Wandering Aengus Ciderworks after Thanksgiving, they were almost sold out. I asked them about Clear Creek Distillery, to which they responded that, yes, they did get the brandy from Clear Creek Distillery. However, it was a small custom batch that they requested, so it was quite expensive, which could help explain the $45 a bottle price tag. Wandering Aengus Ciderworks instead expressed interest in obtaining their own distilling and license.  They went on to explain that most large wineries blend all their wine from all the barrels together before bottling, but some barrels may have contained a slightly inferior wine. Rather than toss the wine, the makers blend it in with the other wine to keep the volume up believing that such a small amount would not affect the overall quality. What Wandering Aengus Ciderworks hopes to do is take their slightly inferior batches and distill them to make the Pommeau. This allows them to better control cider quality, find a use for slightly inferior cider, keep all of the production at their facility, and lower costs on the Pommeau. I say it sounds like a good idea.

One more thing I should note is that Watson does say it is easy to produce your own Pommeau by taking some fresh sweet cider, and add either cider brandy or clear apple eau-de-vie. He does caution about adding too much brandy, as the higher alcohol content will mask the fruit flavors, while not enough brandy might allow raw sweet cider to start fermenting unless it is treated.

Making Alcohol Legally

After saying yesterday that it is illegal to distill without a license, I want to clarify the law when it comes to brewing wine, beer, and cider. Cider: Making, Using, & Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider by Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols devoted a whole chapter to this topic. Basically, under Federal legislation enacted in 1979

(A) EXEMPTION. – Any adult may, without payment of tax, produce wine for personal or family use and not for sale.

(B)   LIMITATION. – The aggregate amount of wine exempt from tax under this paragraph with respect to any household shall not exceed –

(i)             200 gallons per calendar year if there are two or more adults in such household, or

(ii)            100 gallons per calendar year if there is only one adult in such household.

(C) ADULTS. – For purposes of this paragraph, the term ‘adult’ means any individual who has attained eighteen years of age, or the minimum age (if any) established by law applicable in the locality in which the household is situated at which wine may be sold to individuals, whichever is greater.

Proulx and Nichols quoted Jerry Bowerman, chef, Wine, Beer, and Spirits Regulations Branch, Department of Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms as saying, “there are no provisions in law or regulations for a period to cover the production of distilled spirits for personal consumption.” He continues:

“A person who desires to produce distilled spirit must qualify as a distilled spirit plant proprietor prior to commencing actual production. Among the requirements prescribed in Code of Federal Regulations, Title 27 CFR, Part 19, Subparts F, G, and H, qualifications would entail the submission and approval of applications for registration as a distilled spirits plant and for an operating permit to cover the various activities to be conducted, the registration of all stills, preparation of a plat, plans, and flow diagrams, filing of bonds and consent of surety, and installation of security devices such as walls and fences to protect the premises.”

According to Proulx and Nichols, “all distilled spirits produced for consumption are taxed at the rate of $13.50 per proof gallon.”

There are two things I would like to point out about this topic. The first one is that many people do not realize that while it is illegal to distill without jumping though all these hoops, it is legal, assuming you are of age, to purchase a spirit and customize it with fruit, syrups, sugar, and other ingredients to make your own liquor. I would imagine this to be much easier process to go though. In fact, Clear Creek Distillery’s liquiors are brandy with unfermented fruit and maybe sugar added to it, though since they are commercial, they do have to gain federal approval for sale. Someone wishing to do this for personal use or as a gift does not have to worry about federal regulations to do this.

However, for those of you how have their hearts on distilling, Clear Creek Distillery offers a class on the topic. I don’t know if that would meet the criteria set by the government, but I imagine it would be a start. I have also recently stumbled across the Society of Wine Educators, and it appears that they have a Certified Specialist of Spirits Program . Could be worth checking out. So look around – there are classes out there to get one started in distilling legally.

Clear Creek Distillery

Yesterday, I took another tour of Clear Creek Distillery in Portland, OR where they make high quality brandy and are especially known for their Bartlett pear eau de vie, which is a fruit brandy.

Brandy is a distilled product much like other spirits such as rum, whisky, gin, vodka. Clear Creek Distillery takes fresh Oregon grown fruit and crush them, and then allow the fruit to ferment to 5%, skins, stems, seeds and all. The batch is then put into a still and heated. Alcohol boils before water does, so that part becomes steam and rises out of the liquid and goes though long cool metal tubes where it condenses, allowing them to collect the spirit. It is a little more technical than that, as the first part of the steam contains some toxins which smell more like nail polish, and Clear Creek Distillery uses as disinfectant due to the high alcohol content. Next is the drinkable part, which is called the heart. The last part includes some water, which diminishes the scent of the spirit, so they hold that part out as well and call it the tail. Since the alcohol is boiled off, the spirits are bone dry but contain the smell and essence of the original source.

Clear Creek Distillery offers their brandy, which is a distilled grape wine product, eau de vie, grappa, and sweetened liqueurs. They even have a brandy made from Douglas fir. They started out making a Bartlett (AKA Williams) pear eau de vie, but they told us it takes 30 lbs of pears to yield one bottle. That’s a lot of fruit!

I mentioned the first time I went to Clear Creek Distillery had an immense affect on me. Granted, at the time, I didn’t completely understand the whole process, especially before stilling, but I think that is the day that started me down the path towards a cidery. I was standing in there thinking, “How cool would if be if I did this,” and because of my roots, I believed that I could.

Well, it turns out that distilling even a drop without being licensed is illegal in the United States, but there was a man in our tour group who started talking about how he makes cider. Before I even knew about the legalities distilling, I thought that cider would be a great place to start. After all, I did have access to apples. Also, some eau de vie, especially Calvados, is made from cider.