Lets discus our first distillation. You walk into the working side of the distillery and the first thing you see is the impressive 250 gallon Hoga still, but when we were new to distilling and devouring books and blogs as fast as we could, we applied our new-found knowledge not on the Hoga, but on a small, copper still we call the ‘Baby Still’.

In the Still of the Night our first distillation

The Baby Still was the first still to arrive at the distillery. That was a little over 5 years ago. She is an alembic, or pot still . The Hoga arrived later, after it was made in Portugal, travelled through the Panama Canal and up the West Coast. Our first whiskey runs were as romantic as we had imagined they would be. I remember warm nights with the rolling door open at the distillery and the moon in the sky, sitting with the Baby Still , hydrometer at the ready testing every small jar of whiskey that was collected. These days we use the Baby Still to test grain bills before we take them to production. Grain bills are essentially the ingredients in a recipe. Bourbon whiskey by definition must have a grain bill of at least 51% corn. Do what you will with the remaining grain proportions. Rye whiskey must be at least 51% rye grain, then you can get creative. Once we come up with a grain bill that we love by distilling in small batches, we do the math and produce the larger batches that run through the Hoga. Here is where we began our first distillation

Slow and Steady

We treat our stills with great respect. They contribute to the flavors we produce as much as the grain, yeast and water do and we have invested a lot of time and patience understanding their idiosyncrasies. We learned to warm them up slowly and cook with a gentle heat. We discovered that distill in batches so that we get clear heads, hearts and tails cuts and ultimately a smooth, delicious spirit that requires less time in the barrel to mellow. More time spent up front in production results in better quality.

My Dad Taking Care of the Baby.

I learned a long time ago growing up on a ranch, that if you take care of your tools, they will take care of you. Whether saddles or shovels, they were cleaned regularly and stored properly so that they would serve for many years. Both Baby and Hoga stills got a thorough cleaning this week thanks to my dad, Doc Brewer. Like anything else we do at the distillery, we researched and tested before we used anything on the source of our spirits . We use Bar Keepers Friend on the beautiful copper surface of the pot stills – it is super easy to use and does not scratch at all. Those stills are lovingly maintained so that they will be around for a long time, producing delicious spirits for years to come.

Read about Slow Food and the movement that was started by Carlo Petrini.