(Blog)
Kevin Kelpe is a bartender, restaurateur and amateur writer living in Boise, Idaho. He blogs at Save the Drinkers.
Wi-Fi in the Monteleone is well, crappy. And so, what you're about to experience took two days to get up. No, no, no, it's not my ex. It's my thoughts on Allison Evanow's session on Artisan Spirits that took place on Thursday afternoon. This session was very informative for spirit makers, but also very important for us small-beans media. We need to support our artisan distillers!
As far as craft distillers are concerned, Lance Winters is like, my new boyfriend or something. I'm just saying, jeez! And although he was really busy after the Artisan Spirits session, I was very pleased to catch him after the Aroma Thing this afternoon so that we could catch up and chat about all things distilling; you know, just me picking his brain and talking.
"Every region in the world has its own local flavor. Have what they're making so you can truly ingest their culture."
A lot of great things have been said to me immediately before I truly take up my arms and stalk a man. But when Lance made this comment about regional styles and building a local following for your products, I saw a unique opportunity. The obvious and extremely creepy opportunity, and then an opportunity to plug MxMo August, hosted at SaveTheDrinkers.com! The MxMo August theme is Local Flavor, and Lance's immortal words are that theme's new slogan.
The conversation between this panel and the attendees was one that I think we need to address on a mass-media level. Here are the basic points of the panel and of my conversations with Lance Winters and Allison Evanow, (Hot Chick and founder of Square One Organic Vodka.)
Craft distillers, artisan spirit makers, and distributors focused on interesting products with integrity need a vehicle for cultivating the right operators for their products, and in turn serving those products to the right end-user.
As craft cocktail makers, we are not trying to serve great drinks to people who do not want them. We're not trying to feed pearls to pigs, (as our dear Lord Jesus may have said,) but looking for our exact market instead. We want to build a program to cultivate a kind of buyer that loves that program, helps the program build popularity, and then helps build the overall awareness of the drinking public.
Concordantly, artisan spirit makers should be looking for the bars and bar concepts and bartenders with an equally yoked vision. They shouldn't try to sell pearls of beautiful small batch gin to bartending pigs who are only interested in slinging citrus-flavored beet sugar evaporate mixed with energy drink from the gun. Good instructions for surviving in the distilling world: Build a local following for your great product, be the best, live simply until you can sell a few cases, and try to market directly with the operating public and through the craft-oriented media, (like quality-oriented bloggers,) and hopefully the rest will happen organically and the integrity of your process will match the integrity of your product.
There were other questions addressed like the popularity of organics and the implications of the locavore movement, but the general point of the panel was to discuss ways to establish a foothold for the artisan spirit makers in the general public's drinking habits.
With all of that said, I'd like to take this chance to tell the limited public that might actually read this post about the businesses represented on this panel: Square One Organic Vodka, St. George Spirits, and Haus-Alpenz. (By "tell", I mean "provide links so you can do it yourself.") These are people we need to get behind because they're doing the right thing. If you're an operator, get a hold of these great distillers and find a way to use their products. (Vodka schmodka, you can find a way to use it, you turd.) You'll be pleased to make something besides an Ultimate Cadillac Grapejito Whatever, and they'll be glad to have one more account closer to getting their kids through college
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BOOK REVIEW

Whiskey Truth vs Bourbon Myth, Tracing the Roots of An American Original
Kentucky Bourbon, The Early Years of Whiskeymaking, Henry G. Crowgey, 2008, University Press of Kentucky, ISBN 978-0-8131-9183-6

It's rare for a scholarly treatise that tackles the labyrinthine murk of Bourbon history to end up being a good read, but that's exactly what Crowgey has done in this utterly entertaining review of fact vs myth regarding Bourbon's genesis.
That Bourbon would become the logical conclusion of the progressive pursuit of alcohol by the colonists, pioneers, and settlers seems obvious today, but as Crowgey reveals, at the beginning, no one had a clue. As a term, Bourbon itself began as a vague territorial area that originated somewhere in Virginia and ended up at Maysville (then Limestone) on the Ohio River. In 1786, Bourbon County was carved out of Fayette County (French names abound thanks to their help in the Revolution) six years before Kentucky became a state and included nearly the entire eastern part of the fledgling state. "Old Bourbon," was a general term used at the time to describe Kentucky whiskey, and did not, as Crowgey observes, mean that the whiskey was old, or aged in any way, but that it derived from the large region generally referred to as Bourbon.
The distillers of Kentucky mostly trekked in from Virginia through the Cumberland Gap along the great "Wilderness Trail" blazed by Daniel Boone. Indeed, the Boone brothers (Daniel and Squire) were influential among the early distillers, as Crowgey reveals in the will of one Bartlett Searcy who in 1784 gives "'to John my son a ninety six gallon Still and equipage.' The designated executor for this instrument was 'Cono. Daniel Boone,' and his brother, Squire Boone, was one of the witnesses." The book is replete with delicious little tidbits like the above, and a delight for those of us who are fascinated by the insight they give to those times. For example, this anguished cry of outrage from a Catawba king in 1754: Brothers here is One thing You yourselves are to Blame very much in, That is You Rot Your grain in Tubs, out of which you take and make Strong Spirits You sell it to our young men and give it to them, many times; they get very Drunk . . . this is the Very Cause that they oftentimes Commit those Crimes that is offencive to You and us all thro' the Effect of that Drink, for it Rots their guts and Causes our men to get very sick.
Indeed, the dark and shameful side of distilling was the flagrant and deliberate corruption of the indigenous populations by the "whiskey runners," often working in unison with military strategists. The pernicious use of whiskey as a weapon, though tragic, went hand-in-hand with its use as currency, and even incentive. A December 21, 1800, advertisement "lured prospective recruits with the following advantages of army life: 'an abundant supply of WHISKEY, FOOD AND CLOTHING of the best quality, TWELVE DOLLARS BOUNTY, and TEN DOLLARS PER MONTH, with comfortable quarters and a LIFE OF EASE.'"
But the core of Kentucky Bourbon is how Crowgey addresses Bourbon's two "eternal" questions: Who was the first distiller in Kentucky, and who made the first Bourbon whiskey?
Regarding Kentucky's first distiller, Crowgey asserts that, contrary to common belief, it was neither Evan Williams, as legend favors, nor the Baptist minister Reverend Elijah Craig, who didn't enter the area until 1786.
As a matter of fact, any argument as to the identity of Kentucky's first distiller should be considered purely academic. What actually happened was that a people moved in who regarded liquor as a necessity of life. The distillation of liquor or brandy occupied the same place in their lives as did the making of soap, the grinding of grain in a rude hand mill, or the tanning of animal pelts.
Crowgey later goes on to pinpoint the mythic origins of the Williams and Craig claims to Bourbon fame, but his point remains: there was no "first distiller;" everybody was the first distiller, it came with the territory.
The question of who made the first Bourbon whiskey as we more or less know it today, is somewhat harder to ascertain. The two elements we all understand as essential to Bourbon are the mash bill (51% corn, then malt, mostly rye and then barley) and in charred white oak barrels. According to Crowgey, the first published recipe for what we might consider "Bourbon" appeared in an 1823 edition of the Lexington Gazette, quoting "'A receipt for distilling by a process called sweet mash, by which an average of two gallons of excellent spirit has been made by a noted distiller in the neighborhood of Lexington."'

[SIDEBAR: First Published Recipe for "Bourbon" Whiskey]
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Pour twelve gallons of boiling water into an hundred gallon tub, add one handful of hops, then half a bushel of corn-meal, stir the contents well, again pour in twelve gallons of boiling water and half bushel of meal, repeating the stirring to prevent the meal from collecting into lumps, then pour in twelve gallons more of water and another half bushel of meal, and stir again; let it stand until so cool, the distiller can bear his hand four inches within the surface of the mash, with out more pain than a slight stinging sensation at the ends of his fingers. Then put in a half a gallon of malt and four gallons of rye or wheat meal, after which, stir the vessel about half way, to the bottom, so as to weyt the meal, and let it stand ten minutes; then stir down to the bottom, and repeat the stirring every ten minutes until the liquor shall be about milk-warm or until you can insert your hand into it nine inches without pain. Fill up the tub within for or five inches of the top with cold or cool water, then add half a gallon of yest, and if the weather be very cold, the tub may be covered over with a mat for one night. The tub is then suffered to stand until the bubbles cease to rise, then it will be ready for distillation; and after being well stirred up, the beer should be poured into the still for distillation.
[END SIDEBAR]
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Crowgey also pins a date for the first appearance of the term "Bourbon Whiskey," in an 1821 edition of the Bourbon County newspaper Western Citizen. By 1840, "the use of 'bourbon' in identifying this delightful whiskey had become a statewide practice." History is less revealing, however, regarding the critical use of charred white oak barrels to deliver the distinctive flavor and color of the Bourbon we know today. "Harrison Hall, in 1818," Crowgey observes, "did go into considerable detail on treating the interior of mash containers. However, his reasons are more closely related to sanitation than to aging and color." Hall, Crowgey notes, also admonished that, during the summer months, "it would be necessary to burn the insides with straw. Here is probably the origin of charring whiskey barrels," Crowgey concludes, "and it is quite likely that the practice originated in somewhat the manner that Hall outlines-the use of straw or some other flammable material to burn off the rough interior of new oak staves."
Through the twists and turns of its derivation, Crowgey points out that none of the "Bourbon" of the mid-to-late 1800s would qualify as Bourbon today, and "for all its merits, could not possibly have met modern specifications for bourbon whiskey." Despite the debunking of many Bourbon myths, Crowgey chides the historians of the era, notably William Henry Perrin, most gently. "There was never a serious attempt on the part of nineteenth-century historians of Kentucky to perform the necessary research," he concludes. "Thus was much valuable history lost, perhaps beyond recall, and therefore arose many pleasant legends in its stead."
Here's to pleasant legends, and to a fine history, both excellent companions to a quiet evening of reading, an amber dram of Bourbon.

--Penn Jensen
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MSU research could help boost Michigan's economic spirits
Contact: Jamie DePolo, Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, Office: (609) 354-8403,
depolo@msu.edu;
Kris Berglund, Chemical Engineering/Materials Science, Forestry, Cell: (517) 974-3030, kris.berglund@ltu.se

EAST LANSING, Mich. - A new law allowing small distilleries to market and sell their products onsite is expected to bolster the state's sagging economy, according to a Michigan State professor who played a key role in getting the legislation passed.
The law is based on 11 years of by research by Kris Berglund, University Distinguished Professor of forestry and chemical engineering. Microdistilleries are expected to add more than $400 million to Michigan's economy, according to Rep. Barb Byrum, sponsor of the legislation.
"Before this law was passed, distillers could not sell their products by the bottle or by the glass on premises," Berglund said. "Michigan now has the most producer-friendly law in the country. We're expecting a number of entrepreneurs to start distilling businesses here."
Berglund has been studying distilling processes and conducting how-to workshops since 1997, envisioning a bright future for microdistilleries that were similar to beer microbreweries. Berglund provided extensive background information to Byrum as she was crafting the bill and testified before both the House and Senate as they considered the legislation. Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed the bill into law earlier this month.
Public Act 218 creates a new license class that allows distilleries that manufacture less than 60,000 gallons a year to sell their goods onsite. The license costs $100 annually.
"The new law gives distillers more options," Berglund said. "In the past, distillers could only sell their products through the liquor distribution system. Now they can set up retail operations onsite, much like breweries or wineries do.
"Distilleries are another piece of growing Michigan's bioeconomy," Berglund continued. "We're taking renewable resources and turning them into a high-value, high-quality product."
For more information on MSU's work to grow the bioeconomy, visit www.bioeconomy.msu.edu.

###
Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving.

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Distillery on Seneca Lake plans to start production this fall

Finger Lakes Distilling should be producing spirits by late fall and expects to be open for tastings and sales over the winter. This "micro-distillery" will be housed in an eye-catching building going up the east side of Seneca Lake, about five miles north of Watkins Glen.
"It's a trend that you see in other parts of the country," said Brian McKenzie, company president, about distilleries. Brian McKenzie and master distiller Thomas E. McKenzie (no relation) met at a distillers' conference about a year ago and hit it off right away. They have been collaborating on bringing the vision of their own distillery to life ever since.
Part of the vision is the construction of the two-story distillery, designed by a Rochester firm. It will be built into the side of the hill with a commanding view of Seneca Lake. Designers have planned to construct the almost 25-foot-tall still, which should be visible as one drives into the parking lot, in the southwest corner of the building; a wall of glass has been designed to provide a view of the copper still inside.
The still is being custom-made in Germany and should begin its trek across the ocean in September. White stucco and black trim are intended to make the building look like a Scottish distillery.
Brian, 30, spent several years in the banking business at an Elmira bank before striking out in a new direction. It came after some soul-searching and deciding that he wanted to do something that would jive with the wine tourism industry in the Finger Lakes.
"Some people thought I was a little crazy to leave a steady job in banking. I would be lying if I said wasn't a little bit nervous," Brian said. However he noted that he has done a ton of research and has a great support network of several family members willing to pitch in and ensure that the venture is a success. Brian and Thomas have already gone to New York City to develop contacts with restaurants and retail outlets for their products when they become available.
Thomas' background in agriculture, winemaking and distilling should provide a broad foundation in the production portion of the business. His skills have come in handy already; the seven acres purchased by the company had four acres of Niagara and Concord grapes that needed some pruning to get them in shape. They also are looking forward to having two to three Scottish Highland cattle on the grounds to go with the Scottish theme for the distillery. Feeding the cattle should be no problem as they will be the recipients of the spent grains used in the distillery process for some of their meals.
The company is excited about "embracing what the Finger Lakes agriculture area has to offer," Brian said. Many of the products will be grain-based, although they plan to use fruits to make other products. They have already secured rye grown by Tom Giles on 20 acres in Big Flats for whiskey production. Locally grown grapes will be used to make vodka as well as grape-based alcohol that can be used to fortify wines when making ports.
"We are trying to make a product line that will appeal to a large population," Brian said.
To see progress on the construction of the distillery, go to Fingerlakesdistilling.com.
jrichards@stargazette.com
=================

I have two of the 600 liter stills in stock. They are brand new and are complete. All you have to do is add producte and hook gas to the burner.
We are asking $14,500.00 each.
We also have a few of the 100 liter as in the picture. (above) They are $2,900.00 and they do not have a burneInterested parties can contact Richard Turner at 315-719-0480 or Danny Prospero at 914-769-6252.
================

http://www.ttb.gov/statistics/ds2007_july.pdf

500 Litre Charge Brandy Still
The Reduction Unit is a custom piece of equipment. Production was originally set as a batch process with intent to move into continuous flow operation.
Original logs, manuals, production information accompanies the equipment as well as the supplier detail for each piece of the equipment.
Average batch produced approximately 800 litres per batch.
Processing tank is set on electronic load cells to weight the batch throughout the production and is controlled by separate panel.
Stainless steel tank is equipped with a million BTU burner fueled by natural gas.
Cycle Time
Charge Contents = 0.5 hours
Boil Contents = 1.25 hours
Distil Contents = 7.0 hours
Discharge and Clean = 0.5 hours

Price $75,000
Total = 9.25 hours
Contact Ian Day
nabs@telus.net

Kothe Distilling Technologies.
Award winning handcrafted German engineered potstills for the production of high quality fruit and grain spirits, as well as bioethanol. "Kothe Destillationstechnik" uses patented technology to specially engineer each still with solid quality and energy saving compounds to meet the particular needs of each distiller. Kothe Distilling Technologies is the sole representative of "Kothe Distillationstechnik" in North America, Canada, and Mexico.
Robert Birnecker Kothe Distilling Technologies Inc.
5121 N. Ravenswood Ave
Chicago, IL 60640

http://www.kothe-distilling.com
info@kothe-distilling.com
(571) 278 1343
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State of Oregon challenges you to drink. Their culinary tourism arm, called Oregon Bounty is focusing on Oregon's 20 distilleries this year. We distillers join the states wineries and craft breweries, in a huge fall program that encourages adveterous souls to match food and beverage together.
Here's what you do. It's simple: design a cocktail that represents your favorite part of Oregon, using Oregon's artisan distilled spirits and local products. Pick one or more of the following regions: Portland Metro, Oregon Coast, Central Oregon, Southern Oregon, Willamette Valley, Mt. Hood/Columbia River Gorge, or Eastern Oregon and then get cocktail creative. Yeah, it's a whanky idea, but hey, it's a state agency. At least they are encouraging us to drink. Designing a cocktail that represents, say Eastern Oregon. Now that's a challenge. All entries are due by August 22. Enter on-line below. Winners unveiled September 17 at an event at the Oregon Historical Society.
Seven winners will receive weekend getaways around the state. Grand prize winner will receive Nambé barware, and a two-night getaway to meet and taste with Oregon's artisan distillers at the Oregon Distillers Guild Spirits Tasting, October 11 at McMenamins Edgefield in Troutdale, plus dinners at Paley's Place in Portland, and the Black Rabbit at Edgefield. Not bad for a days work.
Enter via the link below. Be sure to describe how this drink relates to the region you pick and choose a cool name. Seems like they weigh heavily on that. Cocktails will be judged on creativity and originality (use of ingredients, how cocktail name/ingredients tie to associated region) and Approachability (how easily cocktail could be replicated by an average consumer).
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Question: What is wrong with the above drawing
Answer: The pipe into the thumper keg is to short. the pipe should extend into the fluid in the tank. The bubbling effect of the vapors creates a "thumping" sound. This system is also called a doubler.
bill@distilling.com
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Son of infamous ET 'shiner loans relic to Smokies heritage center
By Robert Wilson (Contact)

TOWNSEND - Folks really had to have a reason to go to Charlie Williams' place outside Townsend. It's far enough off all beaten paths that they wouldn't just stumble onto it by accident. But a lot of the folks who did come there had a reason, a good one. Charlie made what was considered some of the best hooch in the hills.
It's a skill Charlie Williams learned at an age when today's children are watching "SpongeBob SquarePants" and trading Pokemon cards.
And while Williams, who died in 1992 in an automobile accident, certainly was not alone in this area in the production of moonshine, three things about his operation stand out:
-- His whiskey was as smooth as a baby's cheeks.
-- He employed sophisticated engineering skills in the placement and concealment of the still.
-- He was never caught at it. He just retired.
Williams' still, which he operated until the late 1980s, has been placed on permanent loan to the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center in Townsend. The donation comes from Williams' son, Mike, a resident of Venice, Fla.
The center has built a special building to house the still, complete with informational placards about its origin and operation. With oversight from Mike Williams, it has been reassembled as closely as possible to its original form for the exhibit, which opened this week.
Bob Patterson, director of the center, said earlier plans to place the still into operation - producing something besides 'shine, for demonstration purposes only - have been thwarted by the condition of the still, which has not been used since around 1988, according to its owner's son.
"We're excited about this opening," Patterson said. "It's something everybody wanted to see and now they can."
Mike Williams, 60, said he got his first taste of moonshine at age 4 and missed his senior class photo at Townsend High School in 1965 because he was helping his father pour concrete for the ceiling of the bunker-style structure that housed the still.
The still was capable of handling as much as 450 gallons of mash and could produce 88 to 95 gallons of whiskey per run, which was about every six days, Williams said.
The senior Williams self-published a book titled "Memoirs of a Mountaineer," which is a tale of a man who learned to make moonshine from his mother in the early part of last century. On some level, moonshine kept his family together and supported them through Prohibition and the Great Depression.
As the decades wore on, he did some hoboing around the nation, hopping freight trains out West and doing various jobs.
He finally lit in Cincinnati, initiating a liaison with an older married woman. This led to a criminal charge the book is a little hazy on, and it cost Williams 12 years in an Ohio prison.
The 1950s found Williams back in East Tennessee - Blount County, to be exact. He bought about 500 very remote acres in the hills on the north side of Tuckaleechee Cove near Townsend.
Mike Williams said the home had no electricity even well into his own life. The home place was situated far back in the hollows at the end of Carrs Creek Road, which was gravel at the time.
The senior Williams began operating the still in the 1950s, but it was discovered by federal agents flying over the site. Mike Williams said his father reckoned the family had about four days before the agents could find their way to the site, so in the meantime he dug a big hole in an agricultural field, disassembled the still, placed it in the hole, covered it over with roofing material and soil. Then he plowed the field so that the whole thing looked perfectly natural to the naked eye.
Sure enough, the FBI agents showed up right on schedule one day while Charlie Williams was not at home. The family was hospitable enough to them and allowed them to look around. They knew it was there, Mike Williams said, but never found it.
No charges were filed.
"Pap," as Mike Williams called his father, "didn't do much for a few years. But he spent his time planning a bigger one."
The whole family was involved with the business, he said, including him at age 6 or 7 and his younger sister.
Ostensibly, Williams said, the family lived on a working farm raising corn, potatoes and a garden to sustain themselves.
"We only went to town about once a week," he said. Plus, they had livestock, cattle, chickens and hogs.
It was around 1964 or '65, Williams said, that his father, whom he described as a "little guy but very aggressive," resurrected the still and moved it to its new location.
Charlie Williams' design involved another hole in the ground with brick walls for which he brought a Missouri masonry crew in to build, telling them it was his basement.
Mike Williams said, however, they knew that wasn't right and asked his father if they could have some of whatever he was going to make there.
The room had a concrete floor and four vents in the walls. Three of the vents connected through a 2-foot-square concrete channel that the Williamses made to the outside at points several yards away. The opposite ends of the channel were concealed by piles of rocks. These drew air into the still house by use of a fan.
The fourth vent allowed smoke from the fire that heated the still to rise through a pipe that came out in a hollow tree far up on top of the ridge above the still house.
In addition, Williams said, his father buried a tank near the still house into which he could drain the used mash before starting another batch. That tank then had a drain several hundred yards away into Carrs Creek. When the rains would come and the creek rose, Williams said, his father would simply open a valve and release the mash into the creek.
It was the pungent smell of the mash, he said, that usually drew law enforcement to a still. But air vents, a hollow-tree smokestack and a high-water mash disposal system defeated prying eyes - and noses.
Williams acknowledges that dumping mash into a pristine creek would give a present-day environmental overseer bad dreams.
The ceiling of the still house was what Mike Williams was working on while 30-something others in his senior class were having their picture taken.
The concrete ceiling was covered on top with 18 inches of soil, and a shed was built over it.
On one end of the shed there was an elevator fashioned from steel and run by an electric motor that powered the transmission and rear end of a car to winch the elevator up and down. It was the only way for people or supplies to enter the still house or for hooch find its way out.
On top, the elevator was concealed by a boat that was always in some state of repair. The Williamses even periodically sprinkled sawdust around the boat to make it appear they were working on it.
Williams said his father was a stickler for cleanliness in his distilling operation and his focus was on quality, not quantity. And he never sold to strangers, only people he knew, first in quart Mason jars and later in gallon jugs when buying large quantities of jars could betray a still operator.
The still was in pretty much continuous operation until the late 1980s when, Mike Williams said, his father simply quit.
"He had a little nest egg," Williams said, "and didn't need to do it anymore." Charlie was in his mid-70s.
Money from the still operation put Mike Williams through a couple of years at the University of Tennessee, he said.
Charlie Williams expressed a desire to be buried beneath the apple tree at his home, and upon his death the family obtained special permission to allow that to happen.
His carved wooden headstone gives his name and birth and death dates and identifies him as:
"One of the last great moonshiners who loved these mountains he called 'God's country.' Still one step ahead of the revenuers."
===================

Recent MBA / Chemcial Engineer with winery and distilling experience is looking for work in the Louisville KY area.
carson.merkwan@gmail.com
or 1.605.464.1667.
===============

American absinthe fans discover local "green fairy"

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters Life!) - The tiny Portland distillery Integrity Spirits has put its sought-after craft vodka and gin on the back burner to brew up something in high demand these days: absinthe.
Other distillers are also scrambling to fill orders as sales across the U.S. surge for the long-banned spirit affectionately called "the green fairy."
"There are about six or seven brands of absinthe available now, and I expect 20 to 25 by year-end," said Brian Robinson, a member of the Wormwood Society, a group of absinthe aficionados.
Austrian distillery Fischer announced in July it would soon begin exporting to the United States an absinthe called Mata Hari. Also last month, Grande Absente from France hit U.S. shelves.
Sale of absinthe was prohibited for nearly 100 years in the United States and some European countries, damned for its now-debunked hallucinogenic and addictive properties.
Associated with famous artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe and Edgar Degas, absinthe's identification with the Bohemian artistic set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries lent an aura of romance.
The bans on absinthe have been slowly lifted around the world and the United States approved the first absinthe for sale last year.
Part of absinthe's allure is the ritual serving. Historically absinthe was served in a distinctively-shaped glass, with sugar cube on a slotted spoon over the top of the glass. Ice water was poured over the cube.
The water hitting the absinthe makes the delicate green go cloudy, a phenomenon known as louche.
Distillers speak lovingly of the challenge of crafting absinthe with its complex mix of herbs including grande wormwood, hyssop, fennel and anise.
"It is layered, complex and beautiful when it is at its best," said Lance Winters, master distiller at St. George Spirits, Alameda, California. "I consider it the peak of the distiller's art form."
Enthusiasts say the traditional sugar cube is no longer necessary because improved distilling has eliminated absinthe's bitterness.
IN WELL-STOCKED BAR

The green fairy packs a punch. Absinthe is generally at least 120 proof, meaning it is 60 percent or more alcohol, compared with about 40 percent for vodka, for example. The licorice-tasting spirit is most often a pretty lime green, but also comes clear and in several colors.
And the romance of absinthe doesn't come cheaply.
The cost of a bottle of absinthe ranges from about $50 to over $100.
Now, it is showing up in cocktails at trendy bars across the country. Daniel Shoemaker, owner and mixologist at Portland's stylish Teardrop Lounge, is creating new absinthe cocktails like the Ex Nihilo, which features gin and vermouth. He is also reinventing some of the absinthe classic cocktails such as the Monkey Gland and the Earthquake.
"It is such a hot item right now," said Rich Phillips of small-batch distiller Integrity, which now has two of its three stills devoted to its Trillium absinthe.
St. George, the first U.S. distiller to sell absinthe, produces 6,000 bottles per batch and is already on it's seventh batch of its Absinthe Verte since the December roll-out. After the first batch went on sale, ""we had a line of people out into the parking lot," Winters said.
Imports are also surging. Worldwide sales of Swiss-made Kubler Absinthe have quadrupled in the past six months, driven by a surge in demand from U.S. consumers, said Joyce Sevilla, a U.S. spokeswoman for Kubler.
No one is predicting that absinthe will ever outsell vodka or other mainstream spirits. But most experts think it will have a permanent place in a well-stocked bar.
"I love absinthe," said Shoemaker, the mixologist. "I really like the flavor in a well-mixed cocktail."
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Join the ADI forum. http://www.adiforums.com
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To read back issues of DISTILLER newsletter?
Go to:
http://distilling.com/backissues.html
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The link to DSP permits is: http://ttb.gov/foia/fri.shtml
Their are over 300 DSP licenses in the USA. Half are craft distilleries. (Nine are whiskey distilleries) The rest are super large industrial distilleries and importers. Check their websites to see if they really distill.
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--To obtain a distilled spirits permit go to:
">http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/index.shtml

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--To obtain TTB list of DSPs go to: http://www.ttb.gov/foia//err.shtml

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--To obtain TTB statistics on distilling go to: www.ttb.gov then scroll down to "spirits" and then the "year".
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--To obtain Distilled Spirits Laws and Regulations go to: http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/spirits_regs.shtml

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--To obtain label regulations go to: http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/bam.shtml distilled spirits manual circular.
To print the Beverage Alcohol Manual: click (Manual)
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