Carrots in a bottle: Veggie spirit makes earthy cocktail

Moonshiners and prison dwellers will tell you (in confidence) that you can successfully make booze from just about anything. But how will it taste?

Boardroom Spirits, a distillery in Lansdale, Pa., recently (and legally) started making a carrot eau de vie called C Spirit, following the success of B Spirit, its liquor distilled entirely from beets. Distilled from 100 percent carrots (over 12 pounds per 375-milliliter bottle), C tastes thoroughly of the sweet, earthy vegetable, overlaid with natural aromas of fennel and fruit, and, like typical eaux de vie, pours at a high (92) proof. The family-owned micro-distillery produces several farm-to-bottle spirits, including gin, rum and a line of brightly flavored vodkas infused with fresh produce like cranberries and ginger.

Marat Mamedov, one of the founders of Boardroom, says the company started fiddling with vegetable-based distillates for a unique twist on the traditions of his Armenian heritage and the Hungarian roots (no pun intended) of his wife, Zsuzsa Palotas. Armenians love fruit brandies, and palinka is a well-known Hungarian liquor double-distilled from stone fruit. Mamedov says the process “is technically challenging when you use vegetables instead of fruits,” due to the enzymes required for proper distillation and fermentation, plus the different cell structures presented by carrots versus plums versus grain mash.

After trying 85-plus recipes, the team got it right. C pairs fantastically with good tonic water; the herbal notes in the tonic make the veggie notes sing out, and, like actual carrots, it’s excellent with fresh citrus and ginger. Mamedov’s favorite C cocktail, the Carita, combines C with tequila in an earthy version of the classic margarita, and it plays deliciously in refreshing mules (recipe below). Purists will sip C neat after dinner as a digestif, in the European tradition.

Next up for Boardroom? Mamedov says that while it will be dipping into more traditional fruit distilling this fall once apples and pears are in season, the next vegetable on tap will be celery root. Makers of bloody marys everywhere should be quivering in anticipation.

C Spirit is from a small-batch maker that is rolling it out nationally. For information on distribution, go to

www.board roomspirits.com.

MICHAEL TERCHA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE The Jack LaLanne cocktail is a take on a mule with C Spirit, made from fresh carrots, acting as the base. (Food stying by Mark Graham.)