San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
At last, a Californiastyle whiskey
Small local distilleries emphasize premium ingredients, creativity
Bay Area distilleries have been producing whiskey for decades, and today there are roughly 20 local distillers who make, age and sell their own whiskey — some of them world class. Yet the Bay Area doesn’t have a welldefined local whiskey style in the same way that it has carved out a distinctive personality for wine, beer and craft cocktails. There is no expectation that a distiller here will use a certain type of grain, or age the whiskey in a specific sort of barrel, as is the case with categories like bourbon and Tennessee whiskey.
But Bay Area whiskey does have an identity — it’s just that what connects these spirits isn’t an archetype or flavor profile, but an ethos. The freedom from strict production rules or established traditions, the focus on highquality ingredients that’s typical of all Bay Area food and drink, and a strong influence from the local craft beer movement are largely what characterize this region’s whiskey.
The benchmarks of American brown liquor, bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, are subject to strict guidelines at just about every step of the production process. In order to call a whiskey bourbon, it must be made with at least 51% corn and aged in brandnew charred American oak barrels. Tennessee whiskey must meet those requirements in addition to being made in the state and filtered through maple wood charcoal.
California whiskey, by contrast, is unconstrained by any governmentmandated process requirements. “When you say Californiastyle whiskey, it can mean a lot of things, but for us it means incorporating local grains, local maltings and locally made barrels,” says Earl Brown, cofounder of Oakland’s Wright & Brown Distilling Co.
For many Bay Area distillers, it also means using a small type of still — the vessel in which distillation occurs — known as a pot still. It’s less efficient than the column stills that are common for industrial whiskey, but producers like Brown believe that pot stills can better preserve the flavors of the spirit’s raw ingredients.
“One thing that sets apart Bay Area whiskey, and true craft whiskey more generally, is that we shun the traditional large column still plants that predominate in Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee,” says Brown. Some distillers from these states say that up to 70% of the flavor of their whiskeys comes from the oak barrels, according to Brown, rather than the cereal grain. Flavors of vanilla, brown sugar, herbs and cinnamon are some of the commonly extracted flavors from American oak barrel aging.
While column stills are capable of making great whiskeys, Brown says, their efficiency sacrifices much of the grain character in exchange. For him, that natural character of the grain is what makes a whiskey unique.
Unlike brandy, which is made from fermented fruit ( wine), whiskey is made from fermented grain ( like beer). And just like whiskey making, for a lot of the most established Bay Area distillers, it all began with beer.
Bruce Joseph, master distiller at Hotaling & Co. in San Francisco, spent 13 years making beer at Anchor Brewing before making the jump to distilling in 1993. Joseph saw a lot of parallels between the two jobs, including the base material of grain and the importance of yeast. As a distiller, he still considers himself to be making beer, in a way, just one that he wouldn’t be able to drink for years. Making decisions on aging was simply a matter of trying things out. Waiting. Then adjusting.
Brewing taught Lance Winters that different roast levels of barley could result in a wide range of flavors in beer. Later, when Winters became a distiller at St. George Spirits in Alameda, he understood that by using a blend of dark roasted malts, including some smoked over beechwood and alder, he could add notes of dried cocoa, coffee, light smoke and roasted hazelnut to whiskey straight out of the still, even before it was flavored by oak barrel aging.
“In 1996, when we started laying down whiskey in barrel, nobody else was using heavily roasted grain in whiskey, as it contains next to no fermentable content, and thus makes less alcohol,” Winters says. “What it does do is create a depth of flavor that can’t be achieved in other ways.”
Racer 5 IPA, the popular hoppy beer from Bear Republic Brewing Co., was the jumpingoff point for Marko Karakasevic, master distiller at Charbay in Ukiah. He had been experimenting with distilling pint-ready beer since 1999, and he found that distilling the piney and citrusy notes of hops would age into something unique — not tasting exactly like beer, but also not like traditional whiskeys. The hops become more of an accent that brackets the malt in a woodsy, evergreen like way.
One San Francisco producer, Seven Stills, emphasizes explicitly the connection between its beers and its whiskeys. It started out making whiskeys that were distilled from its own craft beers but has now begun to experiment in different ways, including a line of beers and whiskey collaborations with other breweries.
Unlike Charbay’s R5 Whiskey, which gets five years of aging in French oak, Seven Stills favors a much shorter aging period for its whiskeys to emphasize the beer flavor. Their Five Pounds whiskey smells like the hazy IPA that it was distilled from, with the fresh piney-resin aroma of hops front and center. It recalls a concentrated IPA, with a hoppiness so strong and alluring that it could be the signature scent of hardcore hopheads.
Just as a focus on thoughtfully sourced produce has long characterized Northern California cuisine, the region’s whiskeys are also made with an uncommon attention to ingredients.
That begins with the grain, whiskey’s fundamental ingredient. Whereas many American whiskeys are made with industrially grown grain, Wright & Brown gets a portion of its grain from organic Northern California farms, including rye and barley from Brown’s family ranch in the remote Mattole Valley ( Humboldt County). Some of that grain undergoes its malting process at Alameda’s Admiral Maltings, a first of its kind craft malting facility.
“It’s exciting to incorporate locally grown grain, trying to see how different varietals of grain might affect character and flavor,” says Brown. “All of these factors mean we make unique whiskeys that have a distinctive style.” The whiskeys from Wright & Brown smell and taste like freshbaked bread: Malty and fermented dough flavors waft from the glass, even in their more traditional bourbon rendition.
Despite the artisanal nature and high quality of many Bay Area whiskeys, it’s still challenging for small distillers here to be heard amid the marketing noise of big industrial whiskeys on the broader