Cameron Krone

Brooklyn, N.Y., the first drops of clear alcohol drizzle from America's newest still. Nick Haase, a slender technician from the still manufacturer Christian Carl Distilleries, kneels to collect the drippings in a plastic pitcher set on the concrete floor. Above him looms a copper kettle studded with gauges, bolts, and portholes; a pretzel of iron pipes; a steel catwalk; and the corrugated-metal peaked roof of a cavernous 5000-square-foot barn in the shadow of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Haase keeps rubbing the liquid between his fingertips and smelling his hands, waiting for the sweet odor signaling that the distillate has passed from its oily, aldehyde-heavy first phase into the usable fruits of the labor, known in distiller jargon as hearts. At 12:48, it happens.

"I will be so bold as to taste it," Haase says. Although it's the first hooch ever to emerge from this still, Haase has the confidence that grows from having set up more than 60 similar machines in America. He cuts the hearts with tap water, sips it, and pronounces it hot, meaning, it's heavy on the ethanol. He passes the cup around to the still's proprietors. "Call me nuts," contractor Rob Herschenfeld says, "but that tastes a lot like alcohol."

The maiden booze run at the New York Distilling Co. (NYDC) uses 21st-century technology to complete a chemical reaction that has changed very little in hundreds of years. At roughly the same time man devised the longbow, people began distilling alcohol from grains and fruits. The taste, the smell, the feeling after imbibing a wee dram—it's basically the same thing a kilt-clad Scots Highlander would have experienced while riding with Robert the Bruce.

But alcohol today, like most of what Americans consume, typically emerges from gigantic, antiseptic, computer-controlled megafactories. In response, outfits like the NYDC satisfy a growing appreciation for things made by hand. Limited-run, small-batch manufacturing, using carefully selected and often local ingredients, is gaining traction among consumers in search of authenticity and character. One manifestation of that trend is the craft distillery, a raw work space filled with alembics, coils, vats, and the smell of cereal and fermentation. Twenty years ago about 60 legal U.S. microdistilleries—those producing less than 65,000 gallons a year—existed; today there are 300-plus, with dozens more emerging each year, according to Bill Owens, founder of the American Distilling Institute. Such artisans are among the most hardcore do-it-yourselfers on the planet, constantly figuring out ways to reclaim the skills and methods nearly lost to mass production. They work in hope that their ingredients and talents lead to something distinctive—something that allows them to grab a toehold against fierce competition from established industry titans.

A partner in the NYDC, Tom Potter, got his start as a small-batch manufacturer when he co-founded the Brooklyn Brewery in 1987. At the time, small breweries were popping up all over the country. Craft beers, such as Sierra Nevada, Samuel Adams, and his own Brooklyn Lager, were just beginning their sales boom. Now Potter and partner Allen Katz see this story playing out again, but with spirits replacing ales and lagers. Beginning with Perry's Tot, a stout 57 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) Navy-strength gin, and a mellow, hibiscus-infused 44 percent ABV gin called Dorothy Parker American Gin, Potter plans to establish the NYDC as the hub of a distilling operation that teams up with a distillery in the Hudson Valley in Warwick, N.Y., as well as with his old pals at the Brooklyn Brewery. "We're going to do a little bit of everything here," Potter says. The open-to-the-public distillery will span the process from mash tuns to cocktails in an adjacent barroom.

Because they have the ability to work slowly and in small quantities, Owens says, independent distillers can control details as particular as the provenance of botanicals and grains. While a tinkerer like Potter experiments with his equipment and ingredients, he can modify the flavors of a given batch by including different cuts, or percentages, of the early and late parts in a distilling run. Known in distillery lingo as heads and tails, these parts of the distillate bookend the hearts part of the run. A distiller bottles the product in each of the three phases, then blends all of them together. The heads and tails contain some undrinkable compounds—some distillers use heads to sanitize equipment. But they make up a critical fraction of a spirit's overall profile, adding in characteristic flavors, rough edges, and heat. Adjusting ratios of each cut allows the artisan to make unique, rich-flavored batches of booze.

But so much of the outcome depends on making these minute adjustments to perfect the procedure. Opening a steam valve another quarter-turn to alter the heat in the gurgling pot, fussing with the water-flow rate to compensate for temperatures on tap at different times of the year—all of these techniques factor in. Even master distillers tweak the machines to keep the quality up to par. For rookies like Potter and Katz at the NYDC, experimentation is a way of life.

Later in the hearts run in the NYDC's premier batch, something goes wrong. The neutral grain spirits are flowing at 20 liters an hour. But somewhere along the way, as a few grimacing testers discover, the drink picked up a plastic overtone. Bill Potter, Tom's son and a junior partner in the still, takes a test tipple and spits the mouthful onto the concrete floor. Haase, the technician, suspects that the culprit could be a 400-liter plastic storage barrel. The crew discusses switching to all-metal bins. Tom Potter picks up the test cup, smells its contents, and takes a sip. He frowns, bulges his cheeks, and looks wide-eyed around the open room for a suitable spot to expectorate. "I just put it right there, Dad," Bill says, pointing to the splatter on the floor. Tom dispatches his mouthful with a pained groan.

The crew will keep tinkering with the formula until they balance the recipe, ingredients, and nuances of operating the new machines. They realize that, as for many craftsmen, one of their most important production methods may just be patience.

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Cameron Krone

Cameron Krone

The Main Ingredients

Two spirits dominate American craft stills: gin, which can be perfected quickly, and bourbon. "Every distiller wants a bourbon," Potter says.

Bourbon

Bourbon is a pure grain alcohol derived from a fermented mash of at least 51 percent corn, combined with barley malt, rye, and wheat. The mash is distilled two or three times to produce clear alcohol between 50 and 57.5 percent ABV. The liquid is aged for at least two years in charred, white oak barrels. As seasons change, the alcohol seeps in and out of the oak's pores, gaining flavor from the wood.

Gin

London dry gin typically originates with a fermented mash of barley and/or corn, water, and a mix of botanicals. Brooklyn Gin uses the six types seen in the jars on the left. First, the product is placed in steel-column stills for one or two distillations. The ethanol produced is then redistilled with the flavoring agents, which can include dried juniper berries, anise, angelica root, cinnamon, orange peel, coriander, and cassia bark. Last, water dilutes the liquor to between 37 and 57 percent ABV.

Cameron Krone

Mash Masters

Five U.S. craft distillers show the diverse tastes and techniques of a thriving spirits subculture.

Prichard's Distillery

Kelso, Tenn.

Most rum is made from blackstrap molasses—the sludge left after sugar is refined. Prichard's makes its rums from table-grade molasses sweet enough to sop up with a biscuit.

Maine Distilleries

Freeport, Maine

The fresh water used to make this still's Cold River Vodka flows past potato fields and filters through miles of underground granite, then arrives pure at the local aquifer.

45th Parallel Distillery

New Richmond, Wis.

Distiller Paul Werni drives his truck a few miles to pick up corn from a local family farm, then uses it to distill vodka and gin in a still midway between the equator and the north pole.

Peach Street Distillers

Palisade, Colo.

After years of trial and error, distiller Davy Lindig perfected his torpedo, a charcoal-packed pipe he uses in a 48-hour process to filter Olathe-corn-based Goat Artisan Vodka.

Clear Creek Distillery

Portland, Ore.

Steve McCarthy's distillery, one of more than 40 in Oregon, is also a pioneer. For 26 years, it has used local fruit and classic European methods to make brandy, eaux de vie, and grappa.

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Pat Kinsella

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