Great News from SIP magazine!

We just received word that our coffee liqueur “Drip” won the Best of  Coffee Spirits category and our Vodka won the runner’s up award for the Best of Vodka category.

There is nothing I like better than doing well at blind tasting’s.

Make sure to check out the next issue of Sip NW Magazine for the complete list that includes wine, beer, travel, and of course spirits.

Good question!

Knee jerk I guessed it was the simple syrup (pure cane sugar) settling out and floating to the bottom…but I was wrong.

I turns out that the sediment that builds at the bottom of the bottle is coffee sediment.

At Rain City Spirits we are very careful when we filter because a lot of those great flavors are coffee oils that can be easily caught up in a filter. To get an amazing coffee liqueur you really need those coffee oils and flavor, even if it means a little natural sediment.

The brewing process we use was created to extract as much coffee flavor as possible. That means an unusually long brew time, perfect temperatures, only the best spring water, and most importantly very little filtration.

The good news is that the sediment is a very natural by product of our coffee brewing process and has no affect on the liqueur itself. That said, you do not need to shake the bottle before serving…but you can if you just want to have fun. Like they say though, if you shake it more than 3 times your playing with it.

p.s. Pick up the next issue of SipNW Magazine…Drip may have won a cool award!

Thanks again for all of your support…couldn’t do it without you.

Cory

Thank you Rain City Spirits fans for all of the support.

Below is a current list of locations were you can find our spirits.

If you do not see your favorite bar, restaurant or retailer on the list please let us know and we will take care of that problem asap.

True craftsman…not tech money hobbyists.

Now that us Washingtonians have been exposed to the myriad of new spirits, I feel compelled to speak on an unfortunate trend that I am seeing.

Being a Craft Distillery myself, I get excited when I see a new “Craft Spirit” in a bar or store. It is great to see these new unique brands, and like most I want to know more about these unknown spirits. What’s their story, how do they make it, what makes it special?

Unfortunately what I am finding is that most of these new brands are simply using “Craft” as a marketing tool. I actually found a rather pricey Rye Whiskey from California that was actually made in Canada.  Unless you were diligent enough to read the fine print on the back label you would have guessed it was hand made down in California, according to an old family recipe.

If you’re not even interested in making your own spirits why bother? Seriously.

When I think of Craft Spirits I think of a artisans with a passion for their trade. People that are striving to create the best spirits possible. Not just slapping fancy boxes and labels on someone else’s booze to make a buck.

Does this mean I think a distillery should grow their own grain, harvest it, malt it, make their own labels, etc… of course not.  But it is mind boggling that someone wouldn’t want to take the time to develop their own recipe, perfect their fermentation techniques and then manipulate those alcohols into something amazing through the distillation process. If you can’t get passionate about any one of those processes then this really is not the “Craft” for you.

And that is where I take offense to some of the brands that I am seeing now. They market themselves as craft, boutique, hand crafted, etc., but when you do a bit of research it becomes clear that they are just using that term to fool people and capitalize on our desires to support the craft movements. I’m not a big fan of people like that.

But in the end it is up to all of us to do our homework or keep each other informed.

For me, I think of Distilleries like restaurants; if you can’t find the chef in the kitchen very often and when you do he doesn’t know shit about cooking…you may want to pass on the food. Same goes for distilleries. If the owner/distiller is never around or doesn’t seem to know anything about the their trade…don’t drink their booze. Hell, good chance it’s not theirs anyways.

As with most industries there are always clear differences between the big corporate companies and the small family businesses. Personally I see advantages and positives for both forms of business, but that said this blog is about liquor and distilling, and in that regard I truly believe that smaller is better.

With the repeal of prohibition June 1, 2012 ( in Washington), another clear differentiation between the small craft distillery and their bigger brother is becoming more evident…PRICING.

Russian Standard Vodka - St. Petersburg, Russia

Obviously this depends on many personal things that will vary depending on your tastes and preferences. That said I am going to lay out the case why bigger is not better.

It may seem that these large producers have created the best and cleanest Vodkas, BUT the reality is that we have just become so accustom to what they produce that we no longer know what quality Vodka tastes like.

Massive Vodka distilleries churn out what is literally just pure Ethanol, by taking fermentable materials and then processing and distilling it in massive quantities until it is just pure alcohol. To me it is like putting organic vegetables through a process to take out all flavor, vitamins, minerals and color, and then put back what I think will sell the best. And what has sold the best for the last 20+ years is a hidden and flavorless spirit.

When you work with such volume and you are stripping out every element of your grain, the quality and source of your grain are no longer a concern. The best case scenario is that these Vodka plants are just using inferior grains, but trust me I have heard worse.

The factories are also typically automated and run off of numbers. Craft Distillers utilize taste, sight, and aroma to guide them. The human palate is an amazing device, and I trust it far more than any automated touch screen control system.

The only uniqueness in the Vodka’s created on these large scales is unfortunately what they put back into the Vodka. Distilleries are allowed to add citric acid and sugar into their Vodka (up to a certain percentage) without mentioning it anywhere on the label. So they use labs to create special blends and filtering processes that will add back some character, even if it is fake.

Personally I would prefer to drink a small, handcrafted Vodka created using amazing local grains, and then distilled in such a way that trace hints of the grain are still noticeable…or as winemakers call it “terroir”. Why go through so much trouble to cover up an amazing and local product.

p.s. The Rain City Still could fit through that small red door in the bottom left part of the Russian Standard Distillery.

If you have been paying attention to the craft distillery movement you must have wondered at least once…what is a “craft distillery”? Is it just smaller producers, does it have to be from here, can they produce whatever they want, is it simply marketing…I wonder?

Honestly, there are a lot of valid questions regarding craft distilling and it will take a few posts to even begin to cover them all.

But, I will start with what it means to us here at Rain City Spirits. For us craft distilling means going back to our roots and creating products like they did in the past, when you utilized the best ingredients available locally and put a lot of hard work and energy into making it the best you could. To us that is inspiring, especially when you are lucky enough to have the best water and grains available anywhere.

That is the framework for Rain City Spirits and the guideline for how we go about producing world class spirits. Does that belief instantly qualify us to be considered as a craft distillery…nope. There are actually rules and guidelines laid out by the Washington State Liquor Control Board. Are craft distilleries by nature automatically better than the larger producers…depends.

My upcoming blog posts will continue to cover the Craft Distilling industry as well as things I have learned along the way. By no means would I consider myself an expert on this topic but I do have an immense passion for it and have learned some pretty cool things that I would love to share.

If you have ideas or things you would like to have me talk about just send me an e-mail (cory@drinkraincity.com)

Thanks