Lake County craft distillers find niche with blueberry moonshine
At Blue Bayou Farms in Yalaha, visitors can buy homemade pies, pick organic blueberries, sample Amish cheese — and purchase a bottle of moonshine.
Brewed in a 50-gallon steel drum from “reject” blueberries, moonshine is “just one more thing” for farm owner Doug McCormack to make his Lake County country store stand out.
The term conjures images of white lightning being cooked illegally during Prohibition. But distillers such as McCormack are riding a wave of popularity for their legal concoctions.
“It’s not in the woods, under a tarp,” said McCormack, sitting with a hand-labeled bottle of Yalaha Bootlegging Co. 100-proof moonshine on his country store porch off County Road 48, northwest of Orlando.
Craft distillers are on the rise across the nation and many in Florida are embracing new laws that give them more growth potential.
Lawmakers recently passed legislation to expand the number of bottles of distilled liquor that can be sold to an individual from four per brand to six. The bill is awaiting action by Gov. Rick Scott. It’s the third bill in four years to expand sales op-
portunities for Florida craft-liquor makers.
“The growth of craft distilling has been very difficult in this state,” said Dick Waters, owner of Florida Farm Distillers near Umatilla. The “boutique” operation produces a 90-proof whiskey.
The number of small liquor producers like Yalaha Bootlegging Co. has grown from 188 to 1,067 across the nation between 2010 and 2015, according to the Craft Spirits Data Project. When Waters began his distillery in 2008, he said he was only one of two licensed distillers in Florida. Today, there are 27.
Those days were the toughest, he said. Florida Farm Distillers could sell only through a distributor, hamstringing Waters’ ability to market the premium liquors he sells with his wife, Marti, on his cattle farm.
“No tours, no open houses,” he said. “It’s hard to do when you can’t taste them and you can’t sell them a bottle.”
Craft distilleries got a break in 2013 when a bill sponsored by former state Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, allowed them to sell spirits on their property instead of only through a wholesaler or distributor. Waters holds open houses several times a month to allow people to sample his “handmade whiskey.”
Just a year before, the drink known as “hooch” began to be sold over the bar counter at Hooch in downtown Orlando.
McCormack, who said his great-grandfather once sold moonshine in jars in an Apopka “roadhouse,” also leaned on his congressman for help. He called U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, R- Clermont, to advance his year-old application with the Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in late 2015. After Webster’s office reached out to the bureau, McCormack said his application was approved in two months.
“Thank God my wife is a nurse practitioner, because she’s supporting this venture,” McCormack said. “You have to have patience with the government.”
Business has gone well for McCormack, who sold 367 bottles of moonshine last month and was awarded a silver medal for his moonshine by the American Distilling Institute this year.
Yalaha Bootlegging sells moonshine for $35 and brandy for $48, both offered in 750-milliliter bottles.
In tapping into the growing market, however, Blue Bayou and Florida Farm Distillers have taken opposite approaches. Waters’ operation, which sells about 6,000 bottles a year, caters to high-end buyers with “premium” rye and unaged whiskey.
Shunning the “moonshine” term, Waters swishes his spirits in an oak barrel to call it “whiskey” per federal requirements.
“Our distilleries on our farm are right across the street from the Ocala National Forest,” Waters said. “Well, there’s plenty of guys in the forest making ‘shine, but that’s not what we do here.
“The modern popularity of white whiskey comes from that … stupid TV show ‘Moonshiners,’” he said of the Discovery Channel program.
Federal law outlines more than 35 requirements for whiskey and other liquors without a single mention of “moonshine,” a liquor that eludes definition.
Moonshine historically was made from leftover grain in the Southeast and Appalachia. But, McCormack said, “There’s no rules . ... you can make it out of anything.” He is aging barrels of pecan moonshine for future distribution but for now is using blueberries exclusively.
He ferments blueberries in vats with yeast and sugar. The process creates a liquid called “mash” that he strains into a stainless steel container.
Heating it with a wok burner, he brings the internal temperature to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, turning it into steam and then condensing it into a clear liquid with a leftover “hint of blueberry.”
Licking the 100-proof ’shine off his finger, he said, “That’s disinfectant right there.”