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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

St. George Spirits



St. George Spirits has released 3 different gins....




ST. GEORGE TERROIR GIN
Terroir Gin is our ode to the wild beauty of the Golden State. Distiller Lance Winters has a passion for exploring place and memory through distillation, and the aromas of the coastal forests on California's Mount Tam were what inspired him to start making gin in the first place. Terroir Gin has an intense earthy, woodsy nose and flavor derived from Douglas fir, California bay laurel, and California coastal sage—complemented by bright, citrusy top notes. This is a unique and proudly Californian gin with a sense of place and poetry.

ST. GEORGE BOTANIVORE GIN
Botanivore Gin (our "botanical eater") earned its name because it's loaded with botanical ingredients. We distilled 20 different botanicals to compose this spirit (no small feat!) and the resulting gin is beautifully balanced and vibrant. Lance compares this gin to an orchestra where all the components are working in harmony. Deliciously herbacious and bright, Botanivore is a versatile addition to any gin cocktail.

ST. GEORGE DRY RYE GIN
Dry Rye Gin has twice as much juniper in its recipe as either of the other two St. George gins, and a base of pot-distilled rye that provides structure and spice. Warm bass notes of pepper and caraway give Dry Rye Gin an intriguing depth of flavor, while the rye provides a sweet maltiness reminiscent of a genever. Try our Dry Rye Gin in your favorite cocktails that call for either gin or rye—or sip it straight for a gin experience like no other.

HOW THEY'RE MADE
If you're familiar with St. George Absinthe Verte, you already know that distiller Lance Winters has mad skills at creating balanced distillates out of complex botanical formulations. For these three St. George gins, Lance retrofitted his beloved absinthe still with a custom-built Carter head assembly. The Carter head allows for elegant expression of the character of the juniper berries and other botanicals, while minimizing resinous and potentially acrid notes from carrying over during distillation.





St. George Single Malt Lot No. 11
A UNIQUELY AMERICAN SINGLE MALT.
We released St. George Single Malt Whiskey in 2000—well before the dawn of the modern American craft whiskey movement. It is with great pride that we can offer you Lot 11, our 11th bottling: distilled, aged, blended, and bottled by us here in California out of love for what a handcrafted whiskey can be.

Making whiskey is what drew distiller Lance Winters to distillation in the first place. Before starting at St. George, Lance had spent five years working as a brewer. When he realized that making beer was halfway to making whiskey, he turned in his brewer's card and dedicated himself to the art and craft of distillation.

Now that we're on our 11th bottling of St. George Single Malt Whiskey, Lance's dream of making an elegant and expressive American whiskey has more than been realized. We start with two-row barley, then roast some and smoke the rest to bring out the character of the grain: various roast levels elicit rich aromas of hazelnut and cocoa, while smoking over beech and alder adds bass notes and complexity. You might think that intense roasting and smoking would give you a knockout firewater of a whiskey, but we distill and barrel age in a variety of cooperage types with the goal of making an ethereal single malt that's gentle and inviting.

Each bottling is a little different since we're able to draw from older barrels with every new batch we put out, but the goal is blend for "positive inconsistency"—increasing expressiveness and flavor with every lot we release.

Our current bottling, Lot 11, was released in January 2012. To achieve just the right flavors and aromas, we ventured deep into the far corners of our whiskey library. Drawing from different barrels (comprised of used bourbon casks, French oak, port barrels, and sherry barrels) allowed us to get the taste profile we were after, with notes of dried fruit, walnut, jasmine, cinnamon, cloves, and orange rind.

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