Camper English's Blog, page 50
February 19, 2019
A Visit to the Luxardo Distillery in Torreglia, Italy
This fall I visited the Luxardo distillery in Torreglia, Italy. Luxardo is of course famous for their maraschino liqueur and maraschino cherries, but they make a range of other products.
The company was founded in Zara in what is now Croatia but was then Austria. The flagship product was their maraschino liqueur then as it is now. It was exported to New Orleans by 1839, and as we know turned up in many of the "improved cocktail" recipes later that century.
In the early 1900s, they were the biggest distiller in Europe. Zara became a part of Italy after WWI, but the distillery was destroyed in WWII. In 1947 the company bought a distillery in Torreglia from the former owner of Cynar. That's where we visited.
Making Luxardo Maraschino
Cherries are harvested in late June. The variety of cherry is "Marasca Luxardo." They don't own the land where most of the cherry trees are grown (not at the location we visited). The do own a few trees on that property though. The lifespan of the trees is only 18-20 years, and they take 3-5 years to start producing useable cherries. Below are some newly planted cherry trees at the distillery.
The leaves, branches, and cherry solids (everything but the cherry juice) are macerated together with water and neutral beet alcohol (about 12% ABV) for up to three years.
The solids go into canvas bags. The liquids are distilled. The heads and tails from distillation go toward macerating the next batch. It's distilled up to 70% ABV in a single distillation.
Cherry solids after maceration.
The maceration tanks are emptied with a rake and then placed into canvas bags (below).
Several types of stills are used at the Luxardo distillery. I think this first one is used for the maraschino.
The distillate is then rested in wooden vats for up to 12 months. Then sugar and water are added and it's stored until bottling.
The juice of the cherries takes a different route: It is fermented with no added yeast. When it gets to 5% alcohol naturally, they fortify it to 40%. This becomes the base of the syrup for cherries, the Sangue Morlacco, and other products.
To make the maraschino cherries, they remove the stone/pit, add sugar and water, and soak them in the cherry syrup. They sell about 1.2 million 400g jars of cherries annually.
Thanks to Luxardo for our visit!
February 14, 2019
A Visit to the Rutte Gin Distillery in Dordrecht, the Netherlands
In the fall of 2017 I had the opportunity to visit the Rutte distillery in Dordrecht, The Netherlands, on my way to Bar Convent Berlin. In the US, Rutte sells their celery gin, dry gin, and Old Simon genever. It is sold in the Royal Dutch Distillers portfolio along with Cherry Heering, Mandarin Napoleon, and Italicus.
Dordrecht is connected by waterways to Rotterdam and the former center for genever production, Schiedam.
The Rutte Distillery is actually a distillery and shop, with former family housing upstairs. It is unlike any other distillery I've visited as it's more of a town shop rather than a industrial warehouse. The best analogy I've come up with is that it's like the town butcher or baker, where they do the work to prepare the food in-house and sell it from the counter in the front shop. At different times of the year, they have a different selection of offerings to sell.
The company dates back to 1749 in Rotterdam. In 1872, the fourth generation Rutte family member bought a cafe and distilled in the back. It was converted into a wine shop something like it is today after being renovated in the 1920s. The last Rutte family member sold the distillery in the 1990s while continuing to work there. He died in 2003.
The distiller since 2003 is Myriam Hendrickx, who comes from a food science background. She had only about a month of overlap between meeting the last Rutte distiller and his death. She kept some formulas like the Old Simon Genever true to the original (except they took out the tonka bean as it is prohibited in the US), while tweaking other recipes.
The malt wine, the malty, flavorful part of genever is purchased from Belgium (almost all malt wine is made there), and I believe all other the Rutte products are based on purchased neutral spirits. Hendrickx says that traditionally the Dutch are "botanical distillers," meaning they make flavored spirits like gin, ginever, and liqueurs, moreso than base spirits like whiskey and rum.
Random Rutte Facts
They produce about 60 products in the small distillery.
The celery in th celery gin comes from celery leaves and celery seeds, not the stalks.
In general, they dilute the neutral spirit with the flavoring elements down to 50% ABV and distil it up to 80%; before bottling to proof.
The current still is a pot-column hybrid still, but Hendrickx says they don't use the rectifying column much, only more like a filter than a distillation.
The smaller products are bottled in-house, but the larger ones (we'll assume the gins) are bottled at DeKuyper.
They make a "monastery liqueur" of similar complexity to Chartreuse, as well as an "Abbey gin" with the same distillate.
They distil botanics that are used in multiple products together in groups, then combine them as needed.
The gins are made as a concentrate that is diluted with more neutral spirit and water at the bottling facility. I asked her about the difference between "single-shot" gins where all the spirit goes through the still with the botanicals. She said, "I don't understand why anyone would do it that way" but sounded interested in hearing the other side of the story. That could make for a fun experiment or debate.
A Look at the Shop in the Front of the Distillery
Upstairs: Former Family Housing, Now a Tasting and Education Center
Down Into the Distillery in the Back
As you can tell, the place is tiny! There is only room for 40 small barrels of aging genever on site. The rest rests elsewhere.
So yes, a charming little place where they make some tasty gins.
February 11, 2019
A Visit to the Nardini Distillery in Bassano, Italy
Nardini, a company known for grappa but which produces a range of liqueurs and amari as well, is headquartered in Bassano del Grappa, Italy, and dates to 1779. I had the chance to visit the company this past fall and wow!
We started our tour in the distillery, or rather, one of the distilleries. The distillery and offices are fronted by Bolle, a building finished in 2004 to celebrate the brand's 225th anniversary.
The building is shaped like bubbles, has a pond underneath it, and the building continues underground. You can see peepholes into the lower level.
This building has an auditorium, meeting space, and laboratory testing space just to embrace the sci-fi look. When you're inside the building it doesn't look Coke bottle green as it appears in these pictures.
Then we left the Bolle and went into the actual distillery. This distillery in Bassano makes the batch distilled products, another one in Treviso (closer to Venice) has column/continuous stills and waste processing facilities.
Y'all know I can't resist a good filtration picture.
We then went into Bassano proper. The town has a famous wooden bridge. One end of the bridge is the Nardini Grapperia (the bridge is embedded in the building) - the original distillery site. On the top level there is a tiny grappa shop, but the building goes down several levels. A 360 Google map of the little shop is here.
This first picture is from Wikipedia.
By Museshare - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
We had aperitifs here and a chance to try some of the products.
Then we walked uphill through the ridiculously charming Bassano city (the cocktail bar you see wasn't open or we'd have stopped in).
Then we hit our third Nardini venue that day, Nardini Garage. It's a restaurant and bar and event space where we had lunch.
Making Grappa at Nardini
There was so much to see on my visit to Nardini (and we didn't even get to the second distillery) that there wasn't as much time as usual for me to geek out on production. So my notes on grappa production are going to be super brief.
They use a variety of grape pomace including merlot, tokai, and pinot grigio
The pomace is covered and sealed and left to ferment in cement vats. No yeast is added.
Distillation is via steam in air-tight stills (so it can be done at a lower temperature). [Note - as covered in my baijiu posts, baijiu is also distilled with steam as a solid.] The steam passes to the distillation column next, where the alcohol and water are separated. It is then redistilled in a rectifying column.
Grappa made at the two different distilleries is blended; I'd imagine much like rum with column still providing the bulk and discontinuous still grappa providing more of the flavor.
demineralized water is used to reduce
Aged grappa is aged in Slovenian oak
The grappa is chill filtered at -10 Celsius
Then they filter with "fossil flour" (which I think is diatomaceous earth) to remove oil. The oil comes from the seeds of the grapes and apparently it's not great for you - contributes to head and stomach aches. Then it's filtered through cellulose.
The oil is recycled and used for the cosmetic industry and grape seed oil; the grape skins are used for cattle feed.
Nardini Products
Nardini produces unaged and aged grappas bottled at 40, 50, and 60% ABV
Rue-infused grappa (rue is apparently a bitter plant that was once used as a vermicide like wormwood)
Tagliatella liqueur- grappa cherry distillate, bitter orange, herbs and spices
Mandorla - almond essential oil plus marasca cherry distillate
Acqua di Cedro in citron
Ginepro is juniper berries with cumin and other herbs
Mistra is star anise
They also have a fernet, elixir china (quinine), rabarbaro, amaro, and red gentian drinking bitters.
Mezzoemezzo is a blend of the rhubarb and gentian bitters
February 8, 2019
Announcing the Launch of CocktailSafe.org
Announcing a new website dedicated to safety in cocktail ingredients and techniques, CocktailSafe.org.
It has been a lot of hard work and there is much more to do, but today we are live!
The site was covered in a story in today's New York Times.
February 7, 2019
A Visit to the Bently Heritage Estate Distillery
America has been opening some truly impressive distilleries and distillery tasting rooms as of late, mostly in Louisville. Since the last time I visited only about four years ago, Michter's just opened a new distillery a week ago, Rabbit Hole distillery looks modern and impressive, and Angel's Envy, the Evan Williams Experience, whatever Bulleit is doing at Stitzel-Weller, Kentucky Peerless, and Old Forester have opened their visitors' centers.
But probably the most exciting new distillery in America to open just popped in Minden, Nevada. The area is a high desert environment, a plateau surrounded by mountains on all sides, about 45 minutes south of Reno.
The scale of Bently Heritage Estate Distillery, which opens to the public Saturday, February 9, 2019, is going to blow your mind. Keep reading.
This is a ranch and an estate distillery, so nearly everything in their bottles is grown on the property (minus botanicals for the gin... so far). That includes barley, oats, wheat, rye, and corn for their base spirits. They also raise cattle and have a butcher shop on the property, and grow other crops including hops and alfalfa.
But let's talk about the stills, because:
Yeah. So there are actually two separate distilleries on the property. This one that looks like the Holy Mother Church of the Order of Saint Juniper; and the other one with where you can sit on a couch and watch American single malt whiskey being made in traditional scotch whisky stills.
The cathedral-like space is a former creamery dating to 1906. From the outside, it doesn't look like much.
Inside, you enter facing this gargantuan pot still with two columns behind it. This is a discontinuous pot-column hybrid system that works together. In this still they make gin, vodka, and forthcoming liqueurs. The two columns are more like a single column cut in half - after the liquid moves through one still it's pumped to the top of the other one to continue its journey.
Behind this still is a stainless steel continuous column still. I believe they said that for anything that will go into the pot still they first strip the solids and give it a first distillation in the column.
The column still is narrow and has so many pipes and parts connecting to it that it's not really recognizable as a still. It's called a Headframe still. It has a capacity of 5000 gallons per day.
Behind the column still is a grain cooker. Grains are pumped in from the ceiling and cooked for 3-4 hours. In the case of their oat spirit that is the base of the vodka and gin, they use "a ton" of enzymes so that the oats don't gunk up the cooker.
Behind the cooker at the far end of the same cathedral room is their experimental still, which is the size of a standard start-up distillery still. It's a pot with rectifying column.
On the sides of the cathedral room are fermentation and storage vats and tanks to hold liquids in the various states of production.
Beyond this room the building continues into a barrel filling room and a bottling line.
Rickhouses
The rickhouses are a mile or so from the other site. We didn't get a chance to peek inside them (I think they are being developed for visitors as well so that certain groups can get barrel tasting experiences there in the future), but they have three separate temperature and humidity controlled areas (so they can imitate the weather changes of Kentucky and Scotland at the same time), plus an experimental climate control area that I assume is smaller.
About the only thing they don't have onsite is a cooperage.
The Feedmill, Scotch Stills, and Visitors' Center
The main visitor's center is the former feedmill with grain silos that date to 1906 as well. The room that makes up the main visitors center apparently held a huge vat of molasses which was used to enrich the grain to make feed. That's used as the design inspiration for the central three-story spiral staircase. There will be a retail shop on the ground floor, a bar on the second floor, and I believe the third floor will be used for special events like mixology lessons. (On my visit, Tony Abou-Ganim was there teaching the press how to make cocktails.)
All three floors of this building have a glass wall that looks into the adjacent concrete silos. The two buildings were joined and the interior of the silos were carved out to make a clover shape. [For an amazing example of this type of architecture, check out the mind-melting pictures of the Zeitz Museum in South Africa.]
Inside the former grain silos are two enormous Forsyth stills for making American single malt whisky. There is also a mash tun and fermentation vat in the room so that all the distillation production is self-contained - except for the malting, which we'll see in a second.
The lyne arm of the still is at quite an angle so in single malt scotch they would tell us that this makes for a meaty, oily style of whisky. Here the distillers said they can make that style of make adjustments so that it comes out in a lighter style if they so wish it.
The Ranch and the Malt
Elsewhere on the ranch they raise cattle and have a retail butcher shop (they're getting into cheese soon as well). The ranch also has the largest compost facility in Nevada, which they use for their spent grains from distilling. This all gets composted and is used as fertilizer in the fields on site.
For spirit production, they're growing heirloom corn varieties, oats, rye, and barley. The distillers make request from the farm managers and they attempt to grow different grain varieties to try in their distillation experiments.
As the Bently Heritage ranch has been operational for about 4.5 years preparing for the distillery to officially open, they have a lot of grains stored up for future spirits. (I think they said they were still distilling 2016 grains for their current products; they've got a lot of backlog.) They have 5 cultivars of barley and I think they've tried a lot of different types of corn.
They have 60,000 acres under cultivation. Even when no grains are currently growing, there's some stuff to look at.
With the scale of this production, it may not surprise you to find that they also malt their own grains. The malt house main room is full of grain storage and big tanks, which are self-contained "auto-malter" makers. Inside, the grains are soaked, dried (kilned), and come out as malted barley.
They also have a separate floor malting room, where wet grains are spread over a concrete floor, turned by hand for a few days, and then dried. (They'll be able to smoke the floor malted barley in the future, as is done in Islay scotch.) They'll be able to process 10 tons of malt per week (!!) here. They'll not use it all for themselves, but will sell some to beer producers.
They build a greenhouse that hasn't been planted yet (expect citrus trees and other botanicals probably to be used in future gin) and have a hop growing area next to it.
Beyond all this, they have a seed bank - apparently some of their heirloom varietals of grains can be hard to source from one year to the next so they propagate and store seeds.
The farm is all-natural and no-GMO, but is not certified organic (and I don't think they plan to be).
The Current Products
Obviously Bently Estate plans to make whiskey, and lots of it. But for now, the distillery is opening with three products: A vodka, a flavored vodka, and a gin.
Source One Vodka is distilled from estate grown oats, and it has a nice soft texture. They also produce a vodka rested in small oloroso sherry barrels.
Juniper Grove Gin is their London dry-style gin that's juniper forward with traditional gin botanicals except for the use of lime rather than other citrus.
Two more gins are forthcoming: Atrium, which will be closer to a New Western style of gin; and Alpine, which includes pinecones and will reflect the botanicals of the region.
What the Hell is Happening Here?
I'm glad you asked. I don't know.
Obviously this is an operation on a scale that is just not seen. Distilleries typically start small and/or focus on one spirit product. This one is starting huge and will be making tons of different spirits - anything that can be grown on the estate. (Which means no rum and maybe no vermouth.) So this one company will have in a few short years an entire portfolio of products, all self-grown and self-made in one location.
I'm very impressed and will continue to watch.
February 6, 2019
China Baijiu Trip Miscellany, in Pictures
If you've been following along, I've made... quite a few posts after my amazingly informative trip to China with Ming River Baijiu. Today is all fun and photos.
Previous posts, all from this one trip:
Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits
Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production
Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation
Baijiu Backgrounder: A Brief History Lesson
Repetitive and Continuous Fermentation and Distillation in Baijiu
A Visit to the Luzhou Laojiao Baijiu Distillery in China
The Four Most Common Styles of Chinese Baijiu
How to Drink Baijiu
Comparing Continuous Fermentation in Baijiu with Sour Mash Whiskey and Jamaican Muck Pits
So here are just some sights and scenes.
Luzhou
The Luzhou Laojiao distillery is located in the city of Luzhou. It's very much not dialed in for Western tourists. We were only there one night.
Above: The street right near our hotel.
The Yangtze River!
A lot of the buildings light up in China.
In the lobby of the hotel we stayed in had this glass cubby for the exclusive use of disinfecting TV remote controls. That's a new one.
Chengdu
From Luzhou we drove to the larger, most cosmopolitan city of Chengdu. It is a growing city and growing tourist and shopping destination.
My hotel room view.
A large, busy park in Chengdu. The yellow trees were a beautiful color not well captured here.
In the park, parents of single children put up signs advertising their adult children's assets. The parents stand around matchmaking in what must be the most humiliating act for the children.
We took an awesome street food tour. I didn't eat much but hello noodle sandwich!
This is a typical baijiu store- the bottles are usually red and gold.
We stopped by a more traditional street baijiu shop. This is a medicinal ingredient infusion kit. Yes, that's a starfish. There's a snake head poking out there too and who know what else.
The baijiu stand sells house infusions kept in the big jars, in various flavors.
The bottles are more infusion-grade bulk baijiu.
Somewhere not far outside the city, we visited a traditional old Chinese village that has been preserved for tourism. Our group of Americans was an attraction for the locals working in the village. People were taking pictures of us as we were taking them of the old buildings.
The interior courtyard of a famous artist's house.
Street vendors were selling local delicacies, along with tchotchkes, traditional parasols, and clothes.
Panda Sanctuary!
Part of what puts Chengdu on the tourism map is their huge panda breeding center and park. We played it right and got there right when it opened. Within two hours, thousands of tour busses pulled up all at once and it became insanely crowded.
The pandas are adorable of course, and the name plates describing their personalities were hilarious.
Part of the entrance to the park. The Kung Fu Panda movie has been integrated into the whole park.
That's all folks!
February 1, 2019
Oops I Talked Trash and It Made the News Twice This Week
I usually use my inside voice when insulting things, but I slipped up twice recently, letting my fingers do the talking, and both my comments made the news.
On PunchDrink.com, Robert Simonson writes a story inspired by me talking smack about a bar's ice.
Some months ago, after a particularly productive week of writing, I parked myself on a stool at Prime Meats, the since-vanished Brooklyn cocktail bar and restaurant, and ordered a congratulatory Old-Fashioned. I then posted a picture of the drink on Instagram, as one does. Some minutes later, a comment arrived: “You deserve better ice as a reward.”
This disgruntled commenter did not know that my Old-Fashioned was delicious; all he could see was that the large ice cube in it was cloudy. The comment was not out of character, given the source: Camper English. The San Francisco-based cocktail writer has carved out a niche for himself as a clear-ice zealot, preaching the virtues of directional freezing—a method by which crystal clear ice can be achieved—in both articles and seminars.
“It’s a huge aesthetic difference that can’t be discounted,” argues English. “Styrofoam cup versus crystal glassware. It makes for a completely different experience.”
Not everyone agrees.
Read the story here.
And then, in the San Francisco Chronicle, Maggie Hoffman included my tweet about a new beer bar that's getting some things wrong.
My fellow professional barfly Camper English of the Alcademics blog summed up the experience in a tweet as being akin to “drinking beer in the TV department of Best Buy.” They’ve adjusted the lighting in recent weeks, which helps, but he has a point.
So..... back to using the inside voice.
January 31, 2019
Comparing Continuous Fermentation in Baijiu with Sour Mash Whiskey and Jamaican Muck Pits
Another baijiu post yessss! Today I want to think about how the circular fermentation process in baijiu is like and unlike sour mash in whiskey and muck pits in Jamaican rum.
Recent posts have been:
Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits
Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production
Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation
Baijiu Backgrounder: A Brief History Lesson
Repetitive and Continuous Fermentation and Distillation in Baijiu
A Visit to the Luzhou Laojiao Baijiu Distillery in China
The Four Most Common Styles of Chinese Baijiu
How to Drink Baijiu
No need to read them all now.
As described in this post, in strong aroma baijiu, grains are fermented in earthen pits, distilled as solids, and fermented again in the same pits they came out of. A little bit of new grain is added to each fermentation cycle along with the already-distilled grain.
This may sound slightly familiar: in "sour mash" whiskey, some of the post-distillation materials are added to the next fermentation batch.
And in Jamaican rum, some distilleries use "muck pits" that are blends of previous stillage fermenting together. Some amount of this is thrown into new fermentation batches.
So let's talk about how these are alike and how they may be different.
Sour Mash
I had always heard that sour mashing was done for "consistency between batches" and thought that "sour mash" is like sourdough, where live fermenting material goes into following batches so they're consistent with each other. This turns out not to be the case.
Instead, some of the stillage (the leftover liquid in the still after distillation) is added to the next fermentation batch. Because the stillage has just been in a still that is literally boiling hot, there is no live yeast to transfer from one batch to the next. The sour mash is just acidifying the fermentation vessel to adjust the pH for a better fermentation and to prevent bacterial infection. The quantity of stillage used could be considered part of a distillery's recipe.
Muck Pits
In some Jamaican rums, the stillage (leftovers after distillation) is called dunder, and it is mixed up with other leftovers of the rum production process into something called muck.
From an excellent post on CocktailWonk.com called, "Days of Dunder: Setting the Record Straight on Jamaican Rum’s Mystery Ingredient"
[Muck is] a giant bolus of bacteria that creates a soup of carboxylic acids... muck is essentially a biological reactor for generating acids that eventually turn into yummy esters. It’s fed refuse from various parts of the rum production process, and its pH level is carefully nurtured via the addition of marl to keep it in humming along or dormant, as necessary.
At the end of fermentation, a portion of muck is tossed in with the fermented molasses and it's distilled together to produce hugely-flavorful rum. Note that unlike in sour mashing, they want to promote bacteria- at least the right bacteria.
So, here again we have leftover products from the distillation being added to the next batch, but the purpose is to get those bacteria-generated acids into the still.
Not only is the muck not just the leftovers of one distillation, some of the core bacteria of it is stored in nerd-famous "muck graves" at some distilleries. CocktailWonk writes in the same blog post:
So what of these stories about outdoor muck pits in the bare ground? ... they do store a semi-solid version of the muck in the ground, as a form of long-term storage for the dormant bacteria. Distilleries commonly start and stop production [and the semi-solid bacteria can be used to restart the muck]. By carefully adjusting the pH of the muck, it can be put into a semi-stable state, where it can be stored in an earthen pit. ... the pit is slightly bigger than the size of a human grave.
1,000-Year Pit, 10,000-Year Mash
The name for the process of repeat fermentation in baijiu is "1,000-year pit, 10,000-year mash." I was confused by the phrasing: how could the mash (the fermenting material) be older than the pit that the mash is fermented in? But it was explained to me that 10,000 years basically means "forever" or "endless" So we could rephrase "1,000-year pit, 10,000-year mash" as something like "ancient pit, endless mash." It speaks to the endless cycle of always using some of the previous distillation run in the next fermentation.
So as with sour mash and muck, some of the stuff comes out of the still and goes into the next fermentation (in strong aroma baijiu, it's all of the stuff that comes out of the still).
Like muck, qu (the fermentation agent for baijiu made up of mold, yeast, and bacteria) contains flavor-creating bacteria that distillers want to impact their beverage. But it's not the only place that bacteria come into contact with the fermenting mash. Because the fermentation takes place in earthen pits and covered with mud, the dirt and mud is a home to bacteria from all the previous batches as well- thus the continuity. Sort of like a muck pit. But in this case, that bacteria is present throughout the fermentation, and no doubt that's the reason the pits are covered and sealed rather than left open to ferment as with other spirits.
Different Places
Now, there are other cracks and crannies in distillation where bacteria can live and have multi-batch impacts on the resulting distillates.
Many distilleries are very proud of their wooden fermentation vats, rather than using stainless steel. Like the mud pits and muck pits, bacteria could technically live on between batches of whatever is being fermented.
In a recent story for The Daily Beast, Wayne Curtis wondered if the volcanic tahona stones that are sometimes used to crush agave before fermentation might harbor bacteria as well. He writes:
Another factor possibly in play: microbes. Volcanic stones are semi-porous, hard to clean, and can serve as a home to microorganisms, which in theory could make their way into the fermentation process and influence flavors. Camarena doesn’t rule out microbial influence. “I don’t know,” he says. “We’re dealing with microorganisms floating around here, and nothing gets sterilized.”
“Fantasy,” argues Rodriguez. “Here at Patrón, we do an intensive cleaning process from batch to batch. Our yeast and production process are what is responsible for the flavors of Patrón tequila.”
I suppose there could be other pieces of equipment, containers, and tools harboring helpful bacteria in various spirit production around the world.
To what extent each may impact the final flavor of the individual distillate I don't know, but it's fun to compare common practices across categories.
January 30, 2019
How to Drink Baijiu
This is yet another post about baijiu. Today we'll cover how to drink it.
For those following along, my previous posts on baijiu from my trip to the Luzhou Laojiao distillery, which makes the 1573 National Cellar and Ming River brands, are:
Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits
Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production
Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation
Baijiu Backgrounder: A Brief History Lesson
Repetitive and Continuous Fermentation and Distillation in Baijiu
A Visit to the Luzhou Laojiao Baijiu Distillery in China
The Four Most Common Styles of Chinese Baijiu
The Ming River baijiu brand, which was developed for the export market (US and Germany currently, I believe) was created by an American baijiu writer/author, plus three founders of a bar in Beijing called Capital Spirits.
Capital Spirits was the world's first bar dedicated to baijiu. This wouldn't seem to make sense, given that almost 13 billion liters of baijiu are purchased every year, more than vodka and whisky combined. But in China, people don't go to bars to drink baijiu; they go to restaurants. If I remember what I learned on my trip correctly, it's rare to find baijiu by the glass, even in a hotel bar. You buy a bottle and you and your guests finish the whole thing. Baijiu cocktails in China? So not a thing, except at Capital Spirits.
The bar is located on a nearly-unlit back street in Beijing, with no clear signage (perhaps none at all). If you plan to go, do your research. It's a little bar with a big selection of baijiu and other spirits. They offer baijiu tasting flights as well as baijiu cocktails. We tried... kind of a lot of them and they do a great job.
I passed on the snake wine.
Drinking Baijiu With Food
In China, people drink baijiu with dinner, sitting family style around a lazy susan table that rotates. It's consumed in tiny shots at room temperature, often in a toast to another person or the whole table. The DrinkBaijiu.com site has a guide to the common practices and traditions for drinking baijiu this way.
Most countries don't have a tradition of drinking spirits with food, just as aperitifs and digestifs, so this is definitely something new for most people. But it was so much fun.
Here are some food pictures from a couple of my meals. As a vegetarian I don't eat about 90% of this stuff, but just looking at these photos makes me very, very thirsty.
Spicy!
Yes of course that's a dish served on a shovel.
I was visiting the distillery in the Sichuan province, so naturally we were eating Sichuan food the whole time. It was often, but not always, quite spicy. Baijiu, with its often creamy, cheesy finish is an excellent pairing with spicy food.
For the many of us who've tried baijiu on its own, it can seem explosively huge in flavor, but if you've just had a mouthful of some rich and spicy Chinese food it makes so much more sense.
I think I'm going to explore trying baijiu with other spicy foods to see how it pairs. Flaming Hot Cheetos, here I come.
January 29, 2019
The Four Most Common Styles of Chinese Baijiu
In this post, I'm going to combine some material from different places. Previous posts have been:
Baijiu Production in Relation to Other Spirits
Regional Differences in Baijiu Style and Production
Baijiu Production: Qu and Fermentation
Baijiu Backgrounder: A Brief History Lesson
Repetitive and Continuous Fermentation and Distillation in Baijiu
A Visit to the Luzhou Laojiao Baijiu Distillery in China
There are at least 12 recognized categories of baijiu, distilled liquor from China: Strong aroma, light aroma, sauce aroma, and rice aroma. Strong aroma makes about 75% of the market, and these four categories in total make up about 90% of the baijiu market. Other categories are mostly combination of these four categories.
In this post, I'm going to outright steal content from the Ming River Baijiu website, and combine it with fermentation/distillation information that I wrote about in my previous post "Repetitive and Continuous Fermentation and Distillation in Baijiu."
If you haven't read previous posts, just know that qu is the combination of yeast, mold, and bacteria that breaks down grains and ferments them at the same time. It is used in all baijiu. You can read more about qu in this post if you'd like.
The first paragraph in each of the below descriptions comes from the Ming River website, and the rest of it comes from me.
Light Aroma Baijiu
Light-aroma baijiu is most popular in northern China. It is made from sorghum and sometimes uses qu made from barley and peas. It is fermented in stone pots or pits, and it is best known for short production cycles with minimal aging periods. It has a light body with floral notes and the mellow sweetness of dried fruit.
There are two types of light aroma baijiu. In the simplest, erguotou, the sorghum grains are steamed, fermented, and distilled just once. For fenjiu, new rice husks are added to the pot still along with fermented sorghum grains. After the first distillation the fermented/distilled grains and new rice husks are fermented again (fresh qu is added) to extract more alcohol from the mash. Each of the distillation runs are stored (and probably aged) separately.
Strong Aroma Baijiu
Strong-aroma baijiu is popular throughout China, but most closely associated with Sichuan Province. It uses wheat qu and continuous fermentation in earthen pits. It is distilled from sorghum, sometimes in combination with other grains. It is notable for a robust body with notes of tropical fruit, anise and pepper.
In strong aroma baijiu, there is no production cycle that ends at a certain point, as in the other baijiu categories - it is endless. At each distillation, new grains (sorghum alone or a mixture of other grains) is added to the still along with fermented grains. After distillation, the grains are taken out of the still, put back into the fermentation pits with more qu, and refermented. Then it's redistilled with some fresh grains, refermented, and on and on.
Ming River baijiu is strong aroma baijiu, made at the Luzhou Laojiao distillery where the flagship product is 1573 National Cellar.
Sauce Aroma Baijiu
Sauce-aroma baijiu, as in soy sauce, comes from Guizhou Province and is made from sorghum fermented in pits lined with stone bricks. Its mash is fermented and distilled eight times in the course of a year. The flavor is rich and umami, with notes of mushroom, caramel and bitter herbs.
We're talking about Moutai here. For sauce aroma baijiu there are 8 cycles of fermentation and distillation, but only a few of the cycles get new grains added. Sorghum is first steamed, then fermented in mud-sealed pits for a month. After fermentation, equal parts fermented sorghum and new unfermented sorghum are distilled, and then the solids are refermented. This is then distilled a second time with fresh grains added to the still. From this point on the mash continues to be refermented after distillation with additional qu, but no new grains are added. The same mash is being fermented and distilled over and over.
The whole production cycle takes one year to complete- and then the spirit is aged (each distillation run separately) and blended. Compare that to say vodka, which ferments a couple days then can be distilled and bottled and the whole thing done within a week.
Rice Aroma Baijiu
Rice-aroma baijiu is associated with southeastern China, particularly Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. It is distilled from rice fermented with rice-based small qu. Unique to this category is the occasional use of continuous distillation. It has a light body similar to vodka, with notes of flowers and honey.
Rice is steamed, fermented, and distilled in either pot or now in continuous stills. This is closest to other spirits without the repeat fermentation described above.
