The craft wing of American distilling is nearly three decades old, and as it has matured, so have the processes that define it. Distillers are experimenting with and adopting boundary-pushing production techniques—and effectively communicating those processes to their consumers is an important way to help sell bottles.
Here, we look at two companies delving into intricate processes that sometimes verge on the arcane—but they’re explaining to consumers what they are doing on the way to producing some highly sought-after bottles.
[PAYWALL]
The Unusual Still at Leopold Bros.
Todd and Scott Leopold founded the Leopold Bros. distillery in Denver about 20 years ago, and stubbornly old-fashioned production choices are partly responsible for the success and respect they’ve won since then.
- They malt 100 percent of the barley they need, on-site, with a large floor-malting operation.
- Instead of a typical aging warehouse, they use a traditional dunnage warehouse, which sacrifices space in favor of better air circulation.
- Committed to faithfully re-creating a whiskey of a bygone era, Leopold Bros. partnered with a local farm to grow the heritage Abruzzi rye used by pre-Prohibition distillers—even though the rye back then had a much lower starch content.
- They use a custom-made three-chamber still, made for them by Vendome Copper & Brass Works, to distill their Three Chamber Rye.
The three-chamber still is unique for a few reasons. First, it’s a modern-made still that was resurrected from old manuscripts and renderings, engineered to be as close to its original design as possible. Before Prohibition, American distilleries such as Hiram Walker used three-chamber stills to make rye whiskey, blending their three-chamber rye with continuously distilled rye for a distinct character. The still is painfully inefficient, compared to more modern stills; as a batch still, it does not run continuously. Todd Leopold describes each chamber as “its own animal.”
Here’s how it works: The top two chambers act as a reflux mechanism, preheating the mash in those chambers before it lands in the third chamber, where it’s already hot. A preheater sits atop the three chambers; when all three chambers plus the preheater are filled, steam enters the third chamber through the bottom of the still. It goes up through a center channel into chamber two, through the mash there, up through the channel again, through the mash in chamber one, and through a coil in the preheater, warming up the mash sitting there that’s just come from the beer well at room temperature. The vapor then makes its way to a condenser, where it interacts with cool water and comes out as a condensed spirit.
While the specific type of still resurrected at Leopold Bros. hadn’t been seen for many decades, the concept behind the distillation is active today. It has a close parallel in the double-retort systems often used in Caribbean rum production—notably in Jamaica—except that the chambers are stacked in the three-chamber still instead of connected in sequence as they are in double-retort systems.
Retort stills, like the three-chamber, are also a type of batch distillation. Introduced to Jamaican rum distillation sometime in the 19th century, double-retort stills were designed to increase the efficiency of pot-still distillation, which was favored back then for a distinctly full, unctuous character in the final distillate.
The simple pot still is connected to two retorts—smaller vessels attached in sequence to the main still. The first retort is loaded with low wines—distillates of about 30 percent ABV—while high wines of about 70 percent ABV are in the second retort. The distiller starts the run normally, but the steam doesn’t flow directly toward the condenser; instead, it runs through a tube that extends through the first retort still. The steam dissolves into the low wines there, almost doubling the alcohol content, then it vaporizes again and flows into the next retort, where it bubbles the high wines. From there it reaches the condenser, producing the liquid spirit. Each retort acts a bit like its own still—its “own animal,” you could say—and the result is similar to triple distillation, except it’s cheaper, faster, and less labor-intensive.
In Jamaica, they use that process to make their famous high-ester rums—and while many rum nerds know about esters, very few would be able to tell you how a double-retort still works.
In that context, the folks at Leopold have managed an impressive feat: Not only have they resurrected a historic distilling technology and used it to make whiskey, but they’ve also leveraged the production process to turn it into a highly sought-after release. When you look at a bottle of the Three Chamber Rye Whiskey, you don’t see overly wrought branding but rather a simple label—the campaign here is all about the distillation of the spirit itself. While most consumers probably can’t tell you exactly how the three-chamber still operates—no matter how many thorough educational videos Leopold Bros. releases—they do seem to understand that the three-chamber still makes a unique product that is more flavorful, and more valuable, than that of more efficient stills. The folks at Leopold based the story of this project and whiskey clearly in American distilling history, using context to emphasize the value of the three-chamber still.
Following the release of the Three Chamber Rye, Todd Leopold decided to pursue another release that would be even more historically accurate. To mimic the blended rye whiskeys made at the time, he sought out continuously distilled rye to blend with his three-chamber rye. Enter Nicole Austin of Cascade Hollow Distilling (formerly George Dickel Distillery); she provided the continuously distilled rye to pair with Leopold’s three-chamber rye, and the two distilleries partnered to release George Dickel x Leopold Bros. Collaboration Blend Rye.
The resurrection of a pre-Prohibition still might have been historic, but a collaboration between an independent distillery and a large brand owned by the biggest spirits conglomerate in the world (Diageo) is truly noteworthy. Yet Diageo, influenced by Austin, saw the potential for such a project, further sharing the story of this traditional distilling practice.
Koji Whiskey at FEW
While Leopold Bros. leaned on history to tell their story, there are other paths distillers can forge when it comes to using unusual processes to make distinctive spirits. A few years ago, the team at FEW Spirits in Evanston, Illinois, installed a dedicated room for the propagation of rice koji, which they use in the distillation of their Cereal Killer Straight Rye whiskey.
Photo courtesy FEW Spirits.
“Koji is mold that you grow on grain or some other substrate that produces the same enzymes as barley, essentially,” says head of operations Riley Henderson. The team at FEW pitch the koji into their fermentors with their already-fermented rye and wheat mash, allowing the mold to saccharify the grains. Though introduced into the mash during the fermentation, koji’s role is not to create alcohol—it’s to drive flavor, even as it breaks down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars.
FEW isn’t the first distiller to apply koji to beer fermentation or whiskey distillation, though the practice never came to define an era in American manufacturing. At the end of the 19th century, Jokichi Takamine introduced and adapted the koji process to make starch-hydrolyzing enzymes, known as amylases, for the production of American beer and whiskey. Koji contributes an identifiable flavor, aroma, and color to fermented foods and drinks such as sake, soy sauce, miso, and shochu. For more than a thousand years, Japanese producers have used a specific variety of fungus—called Aspergillus—as a starter culture in the manufacture of koji.
The meeting point for Asian koji-making and Western malting is the generation of hydrolytic enzymes for subsequent fermentation. Starch sources such as corn, rice, wheat, and rye must be hydrolyzed before fermentation because yeast don’t have their own starch-hydrolyzing enzymes. Thus, koji is more an application of malting than alcoholic fermentation.
When Henderson explains the product, he has to dig deep into the process of whiskey distillation and food science, emphasizing an aspect that most people aren’t very familiar with—fermentation. If you ask an average whiskey consumer about fermentation, they would likely be able to tell you it’s part of the process, but they may not be able to tell you when it takes place or how it works. Henderson, however, has some tried-and-true methods for contextualizing koji and how they use it in the production of their whiskey—and, contrary to what you might think, he doesn’t often start with miso or soy sauce.
“I think cheese is a go-to for me a lot of times,” Henderson says. “Because I say, ‘Listen, this whiskey doesn’t taste like cheese, but ... think about how mold is used on Brie—it changes the flavor; it’s used to break down those components of milk and can kind of transform one product into another. So, it’s helping us to transform rice into this powerhouse of conversion and flavor development.’”
Henderson uses the kitchen as a gateway into the distillery, emphasizing the way they treat their raw materials at FEW and the familiar methods a person might use to make specific foods.
Of course, mentions of cheese and koji can lead to discussions about edible mold—a challenging concept for many consumers. At some point—to release spirits such as Cereal Killer, which are distinctive thanks to a very specific, process-driven innovation—you need to trust your customers’ innate sense of curiosity.
Henderson has delivered more in-person explanations about this product than about any other at FEW, but no explanation can match having people simply try the whiskey itself. It’s a gamble to make a spirit that deviates from the norm, but it’s one that Henderson and the team at FEW were happy to make.
Henderson says they’ve found other unexpected benefits of this release. Even though FEW produces primarily traditional American spirits, Cereal Killer has been a bridge to help them approach restaurants and bars that feature Asian cuisine or drinks, such as sake. The excitement over the spirit creates a deeper connection for those who are familiar with koji and can understand how it would impact a fermentation, and they can share that enthusiasm with others.
“People [can] see the change in process,” Henderson says, “and you end up getting your own little ambassadors.”
