Transcript: Distillery 209 (Part 2)

Cocktails on the Fly
Episode: “Distillery 209 (part 2)”

Alberta Straub: In our last show, we saw how neutral spirits are mixed with snow melt from the Sierras for the foundation of distillery 209 world class gin. Now we are going to take a look at what goes into giving 209 its unique flavor.
Ok, here we are in distillery 209’s top secret botanical room. This is the place that makes gin, gin alright? And the distinctive flavor that 209 has. Tell us about all these herbs and spices you have out here.
Arnie: Well sure thing, this is my little lair here. This is my bat cave if you will where I hang out and come up with the different combinations, but this is an example of, I will trade you, of what goes into 209 gins. Of course gin is based on juniper berries. It was a curative back in the middle ages and they have got this wonderful sweet resiny note to them. And they are the backbone of any gin. In fact gin by law has to be predominantly flavored with juniper.
But we didn’t stop there; we just decided we wanted to go down a different path. Take what I call the citrus spice road if you will.
Alberta Straub: Because 209 does have a distinctive flavor, different than other fine gins, and its really nice. Tell us about that, how did that happen?
Arnie: Sure, the other thing I wanted to have is a good nod to history and coriander seeds which are the seed of the cilantro plant had a nice wonderful sweet flowery citrus note to it. So here let me just crush some up for you here.
Alberta Straub: That smells amazing.
Arnie: Yes, now we use the smaller seeds, they have this great floral back note. And most of the big classic London dry gins are going to have a lot of the coriander and juniper. But I went down and started to work with cardamom.
Alberta Straub: This is one of my favorite herbs, or spice. This is a spice so it’s not an herb it’s a spice?
Arnie: It’s a spice actually it’s in the ginger family.
Alberta Straub: Oh it is really? I love the smell and I love the flavor. This is kind of different though, than the cardamom that I am familiar with, that’s green.
Arnie: Yes, the green cardamom that you are familiar with that you will often find at stores and various spice locations is a little bit different than ours. Ours is actually dried over fires and has a nice woody note to it that is kind of a smoky bit to it.
Alberta Straub: Neat, so you have a special way of using it as well don’t you?
Arnie: Yes, What I have found is I came up with a recipe, you asked how I came up with a recipe I took all these home to my flat here in Betrayal hill.
Alberta Straub: Ok and where is that located? Just kidding…
Arnie: Over there!
Alberta Straub: Camping outside the front… Ok what happened?
Arnie: And I made really strong teas out of them to start with. To see how they reacted when you boil them. And I found out that the cardamom pods, the longer skinnier ones are a bit bitter so we hand sort those out. And we just want those short little guys that are nice and nutty.
Alberta Straub: So you hand sort out the long ones and then take out the short nutty ones, and then what happens?
Arnie: Well, I also found that the husks were not really what you want to have in the pot when it’s distilling so this nice little unit here allows me to take of the husks.
Alberta Straub: Wow, look at that!
Arnie: And just leave the seeds.
Alberta Straub: Let me smell, I can smell it from here that’s amazing, that’s really good.
Arnie: Yeah that wonderful resin which you really want to have in there.
Alberta Straub: That’s really, really good.
Arnie: So cardamom is a big part of it, but we also use a lot of Cassia bark. Now you may know this, because cinnamon is in the Cassia family.
Alberta Straub: Yes, but its different.
Arnie: Well, It kind of is, it is kind of like the darker earthier cousin of cinnamon. And it’s got some wonderful back notes that we like to have. And we grind it here in the botanical room right before we distill.
Alberta Straub: Ok, that’s fabulous.
Arnie: And then one of the other traditional elements to gin is angelical root.
Alberta Straub: What does that do?
Arnie: Well angelica root is a backbone note that also gives a bit of a binding to the rest of the flavors, and helps them stay in the solution of the gin.
Alberta Straub: Fantastic, now I know there is something else in it I….
Arnie: Ah yes, good some Bergamot here for you. Now Bergamot comes from Calabria Italy and we import it specially. And it’s prepared to our specifications. If you grind it up a little bit in this sack…
Alberta Straub: I can smell it here.
Arnie: Oh, you can.
Alberta Straub: It’s amazing, and this really does give 209 that distinctive note that it has.
Arnie: It has that high citrus floral note. And bergamot is a fabulous bitter orange. It’s been used for centuries in perfumes and in colognes, aftershave. You may know it as the flavoring in Earl Grey tea.
Alberta Straub: Well it certainly does taste great in your gin. Ok, well looks like we got a lot done here, then what happens Arnie? Where do we go?
Arnie: Well, we take all of our spices which we weigh out and we put them into the pot still.
Alberta Straub: Ah, are we going to talk about that now? Let’s go the still.
Arnie: Yeah let’s go to the still.
Alberta Straub: So this thing is beautiful, tell me about this baby.
Arnie: Well this is our hand hammered copper pot still that we had built to our specifications, over in Scotland. And she looks really old but she's brand new. She's actually designed off of one of the Glenmorangie whiskey stills. And it’s got a really high neck. But what a lot of people don’t know is that the Glenmorangie whiskey stills were actually taken from a defunct gin distillery.
Alberta Straub: How interesting wow!
Arnie: So it kind of went full circle for us. So when we have all our botanicals all laid out the night before we distill, I throw them in this hatch and they soak overnight. And that sort of coaxes out those natural oils we are looking to have in the gin. And when it comes to the next morning what we do is fire up our boiler and we start the steam up.
It surrounds this copper pot just like a double boiler. And we slowly bring the gin and the excuse me the water and the alcohol up to temperature, and the alcohol begin to evaporate. And that’s when the flavors start to come out. And the real magic happens.
Alberta Straub: Ok, so it evaporates and it travels…
Arnie: Yes, it travels up the still and eventually comes over to this side. Why don’t you come walk around here and I will show you it to you.
Alberta Straub: Great lets check it out. So Arnie tell us about this amazing and beautiful contraption. Well this is where the gin comes out of the still at. This is called a spirit safe. And it’s called a spirit safe because…
Alberta Straub: To keep it safe from me?
Arnie: Well, from everybody actually. But a spirit safe was mandated by the British government because they didn’t want any thievery in there distilleries, and so they would lock them down to make sure the taxman got everything that was his due. But let’s take ours and open it up, and we will take samples out of the distillation every fifteen minutes for taste and also to measure the alcohol level.
So it is a very long process for us. We distill all day long, so our botanicals have been steeping over night and then about seven thirty in the morning we will start our boiler and then we will start collecting spirit around nine thirty or ten. And we will keep collecting spirit until about four or five in the afternoon.
Alberta Straub: Now I remember talking to you about the different stages of spirit, and there is something I want to ask you about, the Angel share. Can you tell me about that?
Arnie: Well, Angel Share is mostly for spirits that are aged. And we are very lucky that gin is not aged. So we can make it and sell it in just a couple of days.
Alberta Straub: So there is no Angel Share?
Arnie: No, no, we keep everything, in fact if you can smell something going on in here that means I am losing money.
Alberta Straub: Ok, so tell me about it. So there is a process you were telling me, there is the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Arnie: Yea, every good distillation run has what they call the heads, the heart and the tail. And the heads are part of the distillation that come over from the pot and still. It is of a lower grade alcohol and potentially has some bad flavors in it. So we wait until the heart of the distillation is there, the alcohol level comes up. And we then make our decision. I am going to drop this for just a second.
Alberta Straub: Help with that, I got my hand out of the way, perfect.
Arnie: And you can see the spout here, and we make the trade off going from heads, to collecting our gin. And we do that for several hours.
Alberta Straub: Ah, fantastic ok. So what are you looking for when you make the transition?
Arnie: Well, we are looking for specific alcohol content, but mostly for flavor too. So we always make the decision based upon what our pallets tell us.
Alberta Straub: So you are doing a little taste testing. And I am sure that a lot of spitting right?
Arnie: Well of course, because we are at it for many hours during the day! And at the end of keeping the heart of the distillation, in the middle of the afternoon we will make another decision by taste and by alcohol content, to go back to what we call tails. And at that point we boil off the rest of the alcohol which we send for recycling.
Alberta Straub: Recycling what do you mean?
Arnie: Well, some distilleries like to meter it back in to another distillation but we decided here at 209 there is a reason we are getting rid of it in the first place. And so we collect all of our heads and tails which still have quiet a bit of alcohol in them and we send them down to Rancho Cucamonga, where all the alcohol is stripped out again and it becomes hair spray or car fuel or something.
Alberta Straub: that’s fantastic; think about that this whole place is green baby!
Arnie: Yes, it is. And at the end of the day all that is left is a couple hundred gallons of very strong herbal tea basically. And we save the solid matter which we compost and give back to the winery that the distillery 209 is on, in Napa Valley. And the tea is safe to go to drain at that point.
Alberta Straub: Fantastic, so what happens next?
Arnie: Well actually why don’t I show you a little bit about the magic in the still. I have got one of my test stills running down stairs so let’s go take a look at that.
Alberta Straub: Wow, great cool.

Distillery No. 209:
The botcave contains all the flavor ingredients. The actual recipe is top secret. The flavors start with juniper berries. It’s required by law for gin, spice like Coriander, Cassia Bark, Angelica Root are also used.
Bergamot orange gives it the citrus undertones. The spices are added to the still and soaked overnight. The brew is slowly brought to a boil. The alcohol evaporates, then is cooled and distilled into the spirit safe. There are three parts to the distillation, head, heart and tail. Only the heart is used. There is a lot of information packed into this place and so we got to check it all out. So part three stay tuned, it’s cool, it’s the cool part. And enjoy your cocktails if you’re drinking some at home. Bye.