Master distiller Lance Winters turns landscapes into spirits
By Erin Wade
For the Bay Area News Group
Posted: 02/17/2010 12:00:00 AM PST
On a hazy winter afternoon, St. George Spirits distiller Lance Winters
sits in his lab on Alameda Island, unlit stogie in hand, surveying his
tools and tinctures.
"This one here is turkey rhubarb," he says, extending a small, uncorked
bottle of bitters. "And this one over here is ambergris, a whale
secretion. It's used as a base in many perfumes."
Winters, a former naval engineer once stationed at the base that now
houses the St. George facilities, creates the complex flavors you may
have tasted in Hangar One vodkas, or St. George absinthe, whiskey, eau
de vie and other spirits. He distills flavors drawn from the world
around him, from the earthy scents of Joaquin Miller Park to the
fragrances in his own backyard.
St. George's best-selling mandarin-blossom vodka, for example, was
inspired by the intoxicating perfume of orange blossoms on Winters'
street. To produce the mandarin-blossom vodka and other spirits, St.
George uses only ripe fruits and vegetables, fresh herbs and whole
grains. These raw ingredients — up to 40,000 pounds of raw fruit in the
case of the pear eau de vie — are placed in a still with cultured yeast
to ferment the ingredients and produce alcohol. The still is calibrated
to methodically heat and cool the contents until the alcohol is
separated from the sediment, and the final product reaches a desired
sweetness, smoothness and alcohol content. But the unique depth of flavor?
"It's the love that goes into it," Winters says.
Winters is not the only person distilling artisanal spirits in the Bay
Area, of course. Novato's Square One, for example, makes organic vodkas,
including a blend infused with pear, rose, lemon verbena, lavender and
other botanicals. San Francisco's Anchor Distilling produces not only
craft beers, but small batch, artisanal Junipero Gin and Old Potrero
Whiskey as well. But Winters and his counterparts are among just 150
artisanal distillers in the U.S., according to Bizjournals.com
<http://Bizjournals.com>.
"We often sit around and ask ourselves why there are not more people
doing what we do," he says. "Technically, anyone can do it. But, people
who are motivated by profit are destined to create products, whereas
people not motivated by profit create art."
Winters is constantly at the still, tinkering with new concepts, some
more unusual than others. When Marlow and Sons, a quirky, cozy Brooklyn
restaurant, threw a rabbit dinner, for example, they called Winters.
"I will make no money doing this, and it will take up all my time — I'm
in!" Winters remembers thinking, as he distilled 100 pounds of fresh
carrot juice to create a single bottle of spirits that captured the
vegetable's vivid essence.
For a whole steer dinner at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art,
Winters distilled beef heart to make an unorthodox, grappa-like spirit
through a process called "fat washing."
"It was more interesting conceptually than tasty in practice," he
confesses. But it was enthusiastically received, nonetheless.
Now, Winters is working on a project to capture the essence of his
favorite natural spaces in the Bay Area. He's working with a wild herb
forager to bottle the flavors of the mountains into gin: a Joaquin
Miller blend that would evoke the bay laurel, cedar and fennel found in
the Oakland hills, and a Mt. Tam blend with heavier notes of redwood,
wormwood and sage. On the rocks. With a twist.
Erin Wade is a Bay Area appellate attorney and former restaurant chef.
--
Westercon 64
The First 7-bit Westercon
July 1st to 4th, 2011
Pro GoH: Patricia McKillip
Artist GoH: Kaja & Phil Foglio
Fan GoH: Mike Willmoth
www.westercon64.org
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