Making Hooch In Brooklyn

MAKING HOOCH IN BROOKLYN

Since prohibition began, New York City has been importing their hard liquor from other parts of the country. There doesn’t seem to be a real reason, other than no one thought to open a distillery here. It’s that type of lazy outsourcing however, that has helped bring this country to the edge of the fiscal cliff which we now teeter so precariously on. Luckily Colin and Dave, the two surprisingly sober individuals behind Kings County Distillery are bringing moonshine and bourbon back to the city.

The distillery, housed in a renovated old warehouse in Bushwick, is making the first legal liquor in New York in about nine decades. It’s a small operation but is expanding quickly. In the last month their output has doubled from four batches a day to eight, and while the bourbon is still marinating, you can get the white lightening at a few different places in Brooklyn and Manhattan already.

Turns out this whole operation is just a few blocks from my apartment, so last Saturday I walked to the HQ for a quick look-see at the inner workings of the joint.

This is a bunch of corn. This stuff gets thrown into a pot with some water and heated to the precise moment when it looks like piss with chunks of vomit inside.

Personally, I’ve never paid too much attention to barrels. They’re wooden, look old-timey, and if you ever find yourself in a cartoon without clothes you can wear one. I thought everyone shared my barrel ennui until Colin told me just how big a part the oval-y wooden things play in the bourban-making world. The alcohol gets its charred-oak color from the barrel, the slightly sugary flavor comes from the sap, and the barrel’s carbon helps to filter the whiskey. These are imported from Minnesota.

Next we went to the meth lab-looking room.

Here’s Colin checking the temperature on a vat of corn.

What did I tell you? Piss and vomit, right? When this stuff cools you toss the barley in there.

This is what barley looks like. The barley has enzymes in it that convert the starch and corn to sugar. The yeast consumes that crap, and it turns into alcohol.

Here we see the fermentation process at work.

Once you have everything all nice and fermented, it gets strained and thrown inside these stills which sit on top of hot plates. Over the course of about five hours the steam from the firewater gets drained into those jugs on the floor, then those jugs are combined and poured into another still, which gives it that clean, double-distilled flavor.

If you’re easily impressed like me, you’re probably thinking the stills look pretty fancy. But when I told Colin they seemed high-tech he humbly told me it was basically the same operation someone would have on their porch, times five.

This is not Chablis, it’s poison. And it’s some of the throwaway stuff that comes out of the still during the first stages of the process. They keep it around to use as a cleaning solvent.

This anal probe-looking guy measures alcohol content. In order to be considered bourbon, the AC can’t be more than 60%. David and Collin say that “bourbon” is one of the most restrictive terms to use in whiskey cookin’. There’s tons of laws which address everything from the overall process to aging to the proof. It’s a byzantine ordeal that bourbon makers have to follow in order to call the stuff they produce bourbon.

Here’s the hooch.

Thar she blows. The first distillery permit issued in New York City since before prohibition.

After sampling a bit of the merchandise I was sold. As far as moonshine goes it was good. Meaning it tasted slightly better than rubbing alcohol, which is more than I can say for other moonshines I’ve had.

The bourbon is aging in its fancy barrels right now, and won’t be ready until sometime this winter, but you can buy the ’shine at a few places in Brooklyn as well as Manhattan. Click that different colored text down there for more info.

kingscountydistillery.com

By JONATHAN SMITH from Vice

Whisky on Antarctic ice: Shackleton's scotch comes in from the cold

Crate of scotch dating from around 1896 found in hut belonging to explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton to be opened.

from The Guardian

A crate of Scotch whisky that was trapped in Antarctic ice for a century was finally opened today – but the heritage dram won't be tasted by whisky lovers because it is being preserved for its historic significance.

The crate, recovered from the Antarctic hut of renowned explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton after it was found there in 2006, has been thawed very slowly in recent weeks at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The crate was painstakingly opened to reveal 11 bottles of Mackinlay's Scotch whisky, wrapped in paper and straw to protect them from the rigours of a rough trip to Antarctica for Shackleton's 1907 Nimrod expedition.

Though the crate was frozen solid when it was retrieved earlier this year, the whisky inside could be heard sloshing around in the bottles. Antarctica's -30C C (-22F) temperature was not enough to freeze the liquor, dating from 1896 or 1897, and described as being in remarkably good condition.

This Scotch is unlikely ever to be tasted, but master blenders will examine samples of it to see if they can replicate the brew. The original recipe for the Scotch no longer exists.

Once samples have been extracted and sent to the Scottish distiller Whyte and Mackay, which took over Mackinlay's distillery many years ago, the 11 bottles will be returned to their home – under the floorboards of Shackleton's hut at Cape Royds on Ross Island, near Antarctica's McMurdo Sound.

Michael Milne, a Scot who runs the Whisky Galore liquor outlet in Christchurch, described the rare event as a great experience.

"I just looked at this [crate] and honestly, my heartbeat went up about three paces. It was amazing," he said. "The box was like a pioneer's box with the wood and nails coming out."Although Milne said he'd give anything to have a taste of the whisky, "it is not going to happen and I am not going to get excited about it," he said. "But if there was ever an opportunity, it could be a wonderful one to have."

Nigel Watson, the executive director of the Antarctic Heritage Trust, which is restoring the explorer's hut, said opening the crate was a delicate process.

The crate will remain in cold storage and each of the 11 bottles will be carefully assessed and conserved over the next few weeks. Some samples will be extracted, possibly using a syringe through the bottles' cork stoppers.