Cotton & Reed: DC’s First Rum Distillery

This month Cotton & Reed Distillery celebrated its third anniversary as DC’s First Rum Distillery. One of their many celebration activities included a release of just 102 bottles of 102-proof Sherried Cask Strength Rum ($50). The process starts with their White Rum ($29) made from Lousiana grown raw cane syrup and blackstrap molasses (6,000 pounds per batch) and fermented with a Rhum Agricole yeast strain and a Chenin Blanc yeast strain. The rum is then aged in used bourbon barrels just like their Mellow Gold Rum ($29). Afterward, the aging rum is transferred to PX Sherry-seasoned casks where PX refers to Pedro Ximénez grapes aged in a solera system where the grape brandy undergoes oxidative aging for an Oloroso. This process involves bottling some of the oldest casks, then refilling with grape brandy from younger casks. Cotton & Reed will follow a similar approach with their Sherried Cask Strength Rum augmenting their first cask with rum from a younger cask.

In addition to their very unique Dry Spiced Rum ($29) that is infused with mostly gin inspired botanicals like juniper instead of baking spices, their Despaccino 2018 ($29) is delicious. The coffee beans come from Counter Culture which are then cold-brewed from Junius Coffee. The rum is also infused with rhubarb, dehydrated orange, and cacao all contributing distinct rich characters.

Finally, don't neglect their cocktails.  I chose a light and refreshing Rumba Palumba made from their White Rum, mezcal, grapefruit, and lemons.  Excellent.

Craft Spirits Are Colonizing the District's Ivy City

The District of Columbia now hosts half a dozen distilleries, with all but one located in Northeast's Ivy City -- a warehouse district located between New York Avenue and West Virginia Avenue near Gallaudet University.  DCs oldest and most well known distillery, New Columbia Distillers, set up residency in Ivy City in 2011 where craft the popular Green Hat Gin.  Unfortunately during my Sunday visit, they were closed as well as One Eight Distilling. That was not the case for Joseph A. Magnus & Co and Republic Restoratives Distillery where I spent an afternoon sampling their spirits neat as well as in cocktails. The 5th distillery, Cotton & Reed, is actually right outside Ivy City as shown on the map. Download theCompass Craft Beverage Finder for exact locations.

Joseph A. Magnus & Co is located next door and above Atlas Brew Works so give yourself ample time to visit both.  The distillery is based upon Jimmy Turner finding a hundred year old bourbon produced by his great grandfather Joseph A. Magnus. A new found interest in his family's distilling past led to a with to a partnership with "former Woodford Reserve distiller and Whisky Advocate Lifetime Achievement Award winner Dave Scheurich, American Distilling Institute Director of Research and whiskey blending pro Nancy “The Nose” Fraley, former Buffalo Trace Distillery VP and General Manager Richard Wolf, and Brett Thompson a co-owner of Alexandria’s Pork Barrel BBQ. (See this City Paper article.)  Along with The Gin Goddess, Nicole Hassoun, this team currently produces five spirits: one vodka, two gins, and two bourbons.

During my visit I sampled these five spirits neat and enjoyed one of the cocktails from their Kentucky Derby themed May menu. Go For Gin brought back racing memories and is a tasty concoction of their Vigilant Gin, honey, lemon, and Rinomata - a new Italian aperitif from vermouth producer Giancarlo Mancino. Going neat, a tasting starts with the Royal Seal Vodka ($29, 80 proof) made from 100% corn grown in Virginia and distilled seven times. This spirit is very clean, smooth with a sweet texture that provides a mellow finish. The distillery offers two gins, the Vigilant Gin ($32, 84 proof) and Navy Strength Gin ($39, 114 proof), both infused with botanicals - a few grown in palettes strategically positioned in the sun facing tasting room. This first is a London-style Dry Gin that has a more citrus character and very mild; the second is a much stronger, 100% corn gin that grabs your attention but still remains smooth at the tail. Moving on, the two bourbons shined - although distilled and aged elsewhere the team created blends that are fantastic. The blend for the Murray Hill Club Blended Bourbon ($92, 103 proof) attempts to replicate the pre-prohibition Magnus bourbon and combines 18 year bourbon, 11 year bourbon, and 9 year light whiskey. The result is a fresh and spicy whiskey with both baking spices and pepper. Finally, the Joseph Magnus Straight Bourbon ($92, 100 proof) is a straight bourbon whiskey aged in white oak and finished in Oloroso Sherry, Pedro Ximénez and Cognac casks. This process provides multiple flavors, a complex whiskey alternating between vanilla, nuts, and fruit. All told, a great tasting lineup.

Moving on down road the one year old, woman owned Republic Restoratives Distillery is located right on New York Avenue NE with an inviting open air tasting bar where they stress a facility is just as much a craft cocktail bar as a distillery. Co-founders Pia Carusone and Rachel Gardner hired Master Distiller, Rusty Figgins to focus on bourbon but also leverage the Ivy City Gin phenomena. But first there's the Civic Vodka ($29, 80 proof), a corn-based vodka that is charcoal polished, a filtration process that provides a smooth and clean spirit. The Borough Bourbon ($55, 88 proof) is a Kentucky born whiskey (sourced until their own whiskey is ready) but then finished at the distillery in Sauvignon Blanc barrique casks. The result is a very smooth whiskey, drinking neat nicely with a little vanilla. My favorite. Finally, the Rodham Rye ($79, 90 proof) - guess who its named after - is sourced one-year-old rye and three-and-a-half-year-old rye from Tennessee. The distillery then cuts the whiskey to proof using Adirondack Mountain spring water from a maple syrup farm in upstate new York. The spicy rye expresses itself clearly, there's also a chewiness and long, complex finish. And enjoy a cocktail, mine was a concoction of honey, lime juice, and Borough Bourbon. Cheers. 

Introducing theCompass Craft Beverage Finder Mobile Application

theCompass Winery, Brewery, Distillery Locator app has been re-branded the theCompass Craft Beverage Finder mobile application. The new name encapsulates the expanding craft beverage market from the major three industries (wine, beer, spirits) by including hard cider, mead, and sake.  This re-branding also includes a new website displaying the general functionality of the application. theCompass is available in Android, iPhone, and now Amazon Fire tablets ($.99 on each). The re-branding effort in the iPhone will not be released until later this year as it incorporates the latest iOS upgrades.

theCompass includes information on craft beverage producers in the United States and Canada. These establishments can be mapped using a radius search of the device’s location or by the establishment name, city, or zipcode. Users can also browse establishments by state for the United States or by province for Canada. All results can be filtered by industry type (winery, brewery, distillery, or cidery). On the Android application mead producers are displayed in the counts by country and sake producers are included with the wineries.


The Android version now supports separate interfaces for tablets and other large screen devices as seen in the image on the right. The establishment details view provides a section to view the current and projected weather at that location - necessary information when planning a trip to wine country.

theCompass Winery, Brewery, Distillery Locator App Release 2.1

This week we released the first major upgrade to the Android version of theCompass Winery, Brewery, Distillery Locator App. The new version includes several library upgrades - including Location Services - as well as several workflow patterns. First, the data is now stored on the device allowing for data access in the most isolated regions. Second, the location and zipcode\name searches have been separated to different activities. And along with the state\province module, these activities utilize a viewpager to display the lists and maps of establishments for an easier flow. The maps also include an upgraded cluster library used for California and Washington state and probably for Oregon in the near future. The Company Details activity is basically the same except easier access to social media sharing and a new Weather API that graphically illustrates a seven day forecast.  The next release will include social media logins which will then allow the user to check-in and save comments when visiting an establishment. That work will commence after the WineCompass.com site is upgraded to a more stable platform. Cheers and safe travels.

 

The FDA Finally Acts to Protect our Country's Livestock from the Dangerous Spent Grain from #Beer Mash

Or at least that must be how the FDA sees the world. Why else would the agency propose rules that "require that spent grain for animal feed be dried and prepackaged onsite in a manner that doesn't touch human hands." What is one source of spent grain - our country's breweries and distilleries. Instead of simply dumping the spent grain, most of these companies have established relationships with local farmers to provide the spend grain to supplement the diet of livestock. Scott Harris of Catoctin Creek Distilling Company explained how the cows that benefit from their spent grain rush the delivery truck when it arrives.  (See the 18 minute mark in this MyJoogTV video and video below.)  And not only does the spent grain supplement the diets, but it also hydrates the animals because the "wet" grain has soaked up the water.

Yet the FDA in their wisdom now wants breweries and distilleries to prepackage the feed, adding production costs to the operations for those companies that provide their left over grain to farmers. Instead of packaging the spent grain, they could also choose to just dump the spent grain, adding other costs in itself. The FDA also wants to force brewers to dry their grain, removing any hydration benefits that farmers prefer. Perfect. Another example of government bureaucrats creating a problem where one doesn't currently exist. In this case, just let the invisible hand of the marketplace do it's thing.

The Brewer's Association is on top of this situation and has posted these suggestions to brewers.

For BA members, we ask that you:

1. Communicate with your farmers that we will be looking for them to submit comments to FDA based on the draft farmer comments that we will circulate once final. Farmer comments should focus on the impact to their business of the proposed rules, the preference to receive grains "wet" from brewers, the lack of problems with receiving spent grains as currently in practice and the environmental issues related to a change in current practice.

2. Prepare your own set of comments to FDA based on the sample brewer comments, with an emphasis on how the current proposed rules will impact your business and any thoughts on how landfilling grains may not fit with sustainability efforts.

3. Sign up for the March 27 Power Hour and then send in comments after final revisions by the March 31 deadline.

Let's hope these comments to dissuade the FDA. Beer and spirits consumers should also contact your local representatives in the House of Representatives & Senate.


Update: another video describing farmers love for spent grain:

What are the Best Wine, Beer, & Distillery Mobile Applications?

While designing theCompass Alcohol Locator, we downloaded several other similar Android mobile apps to research the strengths and deficiencies of the current market. These mobile apps can be divided into two categories; (1) those that function as cellar inventories and tasting notes repositories and (2) those that are a compendium of wineries, breweries, or attempt to locate wine or beer in a specific area or establishment.

Some applications attempt to provide functionality within both categories, but often fail to provide adequate service in both. For instance, I utilize Untapped, an application that does well in letting users review beers but suffers in locating craft beers in your area. This is a result of utilizing crowd sourcing, where their data is populated by users and not the establishments. The crowd sourcing option is easy to implement on the application side, but for the user the result is incomplete or outdated information. On the other hand, establishment applications, such as Lost Dog Cafe or World of Beer provide real time tapped information.

Many of the best locator applications are specific to a region or establishment - such as the two listed above. Many states, regions, and enterprising companies have created applications designed for a specific geographic area that provide comprehensive information on their wineries or breweries. Two examples are Virginia Wine In My Pocket and Finger Lakes Wine Country. For me, the deficiencies in these applications are the result of their greatest strength -> they focus on one region, so if you plan on traveling to multiple regions, you must install multiple applications on your device. The one comprehensive wine application that we found was the America's Wine Trail app that provides excellent information by state, but not by geo-location. Thus if you are visiting Washington D.C., the application will provide information separately for Maryland and Virginia but not a combined view.  Our video on traveling to Bristol Virginia\Tennessee for the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion illustrates this concept.

And finally, these applications are segregated by industry - there are wine apps and there are beer apps. But do any combine wineries, breweries, cideries, and distilleries into a single app? Hence, theCompass. As we keep developing and improving theCompass we hope that it alleviates the deficiencies found in the mobile application wine and beer locator market. Cheers

Here's a few to checkout:

Beer

• Untappd
• Lost Dog Cafe
• Bootlegger Nation
• Beerby
• Brewery and Craft Beer Locator

Wine

• Vivino
• Delectable
• Hello Vino
• Vinowine
• Virginia Wine In My Pocket
• Finger Lakes Wine Country
• Visit Monterey Wine Country
• America's Wine Trail