After much soul searching; we have come to the realization we will not be able to build our dream distillery on our farm in Oregon.  It has been a difficult road to say the least but the reality is we are too small to be accepted by our county development department.  The long journey to this conclusion really comes down to money.  The cost of meeting massive and onerous code requirements is beyond our financial ability.

However, there is excellent news that has developed out of our challenges.  (Cue the Phoenix Rising from the Ashes Music.)  We are seeking out a more small business friendly location to develop the distillery.  We will still use our fantastic farm grown ingredients and still us all of the production knowledge we have developed over the years.

So, we look forward to a new location and the excitement that a hunt for a new home has to offer.  Mean while follow along and  learn with us as we find a new home for Braeside Farms Distillery

Ingredients:
3 oz. light rum (Flor de Cana extra lite white)
1 organic lime (or 1 oz. lime juice)
2 tsp. organic sugar
4 fresh mint sprigs
club soda (Talking Rain)
crushed ice

Directions:
Place the mint & sugar into a cocktail shaker with 1 shot of club soda.  Muddle until the sugar is dissolved & the mint is fragrant.  Pour in the rum & lime juice.  Add ice & shake.  Pour through strainer into glass filled with crushed ice, add club soda to top it off, garnish with extra fresh mint sprig & enjoy!

Here at Braeside Farms Distillery, we are going thru the process of opening our very own Nano Distillery.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

In the last few years Nano or Pico Breweries have been popping up all over the US.  Most self identify as micro breweries with small batch sizes between 10 gallons and 5 barrels (Bbl).  Instead of generating 14 to 28 or more 15.5 gallon kegs per day like a typical micro brewery “nano’s” produce a handful of 5 gallon soda a.k.a cornelius kegs per day.  The batches very and the labor is intense.  However, the passion for beer is always close at hand and the nano’s process is so close to a home brew process that the production seems attainable to even a novice home brewer.

This is essentially what is going on in the Nano Distilling world.  Stills sized between 5 gallons to 60 gallons capable of producing batches in the 1/4 case to 3 case per day range.  Production that is very focused on working with the ingredients and the equipment on a small scale.  A love of distilling and fermentation that is quite close to the home brewer or even bread baker.

So now comes the difficult part, is it profitable?  In short, we will see.  The fact is distilling and fermentation for that mater are really, really fun.  Everyone, and that is EVERYONE wants to know what we are doing, how it works and what are we thinking!

The reality is only time will tell.  Stay tuned and share your thoughts if you have considered opening a “nano” distillery, brewery or otherwise

When we tell people we are building a craft distillery, the second thing they say is, “Aren’t you afraid your spirits will make you go blind?”  That question comes just after “Will the ‘revenooers’ come can get you?”

Drinking spirits will not make you go blind and if they do the spirits were not only made improperly but should be on the shelf of your paint store not your liquor store.

The fear about “going blind”, is generally attributed to a concern for methanol poisoning.  Methanol is an alcohol that is derived from the fermentation of pectin.  Methanol is found most often at race car drag strips and paint stores.  The alcohol in “alcohol fuel” is often methanol and wood alcohol in the paint department is methanol.  However, when a distiller wants to make drinking spirits s/he specifically removes the methanol.  To the distiller it is considered a co-product or waste product.  When the still is running, different alcohols leave the still at different temperatures and in different concentrations.  Because methanol becomes a vapor at a lower temperature than ethanol (drinking alcohol) the methanol leaves the still before the ethanol.  This makes removing the methanol fairly easy.

The distiller, takes the temperature of the vapor in the top of the still.  When the boiling point of methanol is reached, the distiller adjusts the still to keep the temperature stable. The methanol vapor is condensed and then removed from the still.  A calculation determining the quantity of methanol in the batch is made.  The distiller collects that amount plus a little more to allow for any margin of error.  And voila, no methanol and no blindness.

So drink up and hears to keeping our sight!

While futures sales of wine have been popular for many years, futures for spirits is relatively new outside of Scotland.  We are reintroducing this method of sale in our craft distillery.

A few reasons to buy futures are listed below.

Wether you are a whiskey or a vodka drinker you will be satisfied.  Digging a little deeper, you also, will find your not just buying spirits, your buying a part of a sustainable growing and distilling system that is a model for spirits production.  Lets look at what we do.

Great spirits starts with quality ingredients.

Our ingredients come from crops grown on our farm and other local farms. We know exactly what goes into each bottle, down to the soil in which the crops are grown!

Great spirits continue with a quality process.

We craft our spirits in nano sized batches. Each batch comes out to a little more than 1/2 of a case.  We carefully produce each batch in our small stills built here on our small farm.

Great spirits is developed in and finished in great wood.

Our whiskey is aged in fine fresh American bourbon barrels.

Extra aging is available in Northwest Pinot Noir casks, Northwest Cabernet Sauvignon and Northwest port casks. All of these casks are from local wine makers.

Early-bird pricing is available! Check out our Buy Futures page for details.

Many of our customers want to know if they should buy CSA shares and spirits as investments. Our farm co-op membership shares give people access to year-round food. Our spirits futures provide a similar access to local whiskey and other alcoholic beverages.

Over time, whiskey and other spirits have all out performed the bench mark indexes. Both wine and whiskey have yielded an average rate of return of 12% since 1996. And that is not the really expensive stuff! Even non-collector beverages have made those returns!

Why is that? The simple answer is when things look shaky, people want “hard assets.” It is difficult to keep a tanker of oil in your yard but a cellar or even a kitchen cabinet can keep your beverages safe for some time. You can consume beverages, but it is difficult to eat gold, and unless it is a well-placed garnish, it does not really taste very good. Alcoholic beverages, on the other hand, can be very tasty.  If you don’t believe us check out this article from Luxist.

A Still used to distill liquor is a simple device. The basic components of a distillation system include: a heat source, a still pot, a still column, a condenser and a collection vessel.  Like all parts of a still the heat source can be make of using an array of parts and in a variety of ways.  Traditional drinking stills used wood and a few distilleries continue to use wood for their heat source.  But given the smoke, weight and need for a dry source, most distilleries have switched from wood to gas or electric heat sources.

The still pot is often made of stainless steel or copper however, there are a few distilleries that use wooded casks for a pot.  Stainless steel is easy to clean, durable and available.  It is difficult to weld and counter to popular belief can be damaged and decay if not properly cared for.  Copper is another good choice for a still pot.  When distillers “wash” or “beer” and distilled vapors come in contact with copper, undesirable flavor compounds such as sulfur are removed from the to be liquor.  For this reason, most modern stills are lined with copper or use copper at some point in the distillation apparatus.

The still column sits atop the still pot.  This is where the vapors from the wash find there way up from the liquid in the pot.  These vapors contain a vast number of chemicals.  The most dominant ones are ethel alcohol and water.  The column diameter, length and material all effect the resulting liquor.   The diameter has a major impact on the amount of vapor that can be moved thru the system.  The length has a major impact on the purity of the vapor.  The material, especially copper, influences the flavor as well as the speed the vapor can travel thru the system.

The condenser is located past, or in some cases inside, the column.  The condenser does just that, condenses the vapor back into liquid.  This is a critical step.  If the vapor is not condensed the liquor can not be produced.  Condensing is usually done with a liquid that is cooler than the vapor, often water.  The cooler water and hotter vapor collide and the vapor is “knocked down” into a liquid.  The vapor must be knocked down quickly so that a mixture of vapor and liquid to not escape the condenser and vapor is lost.  But the condenser can’t be too cold or the vapor will not make it out of the column.  It will just condense in the column and fall back into the still pot.

The final step is capturing the liquid.  The collection vessel is often a small tight neck container that can be used to safely hold the liquid.  This container is small to allow for testing increments of the contents as they come out of the still.  The distiller wants to know what amounts of what substances are in the liquor as it comes out of the still.  A small container allows for a review of small amounts of the product.  The collection vessel is tight necked to reduce the exposure of the contents to the air.  The distiller wants to keep all of the contents in the collection vessel for use and for safety.  When the distillate comes out of the still it is very high in alcohol and can be volatile if not cared for properly.

Whiskey is personal and ownership has benefits. When you buy a cask of whiskey from us, you become a member of our family. But more than the super cool gifts and awesome gear you get, you become a member of a community. When you become a member, you will make friends with not only the person who distills your spirits, but also those who share your common interest. The online community we are building around individual and group barrel purchases is just the start. Check out what you receive when you become a Cask Futures Owner:

All Cask Futures owners receive:

• Owner’s Certificate for you to keep (one per cask with additional provided at preferred rates)
• Your name inscribed on a plaque at the Distillery in honor of your purchase
• Invitations to exclusive Cask Owner Visiting Days

Kilderkin owners receive (in addition to all the above):

• Cask Owner Hat (one per cask with additional provided at preferred rates)

Barrel owners receive (in addition to all the above):

• Cask Owner Jacket (one per cask with additional provided at preferred rates)
• 10 % discount on all spirits purchased at the Distillery as long as your cask is held at the distillery

Well right here of course! But if you really want a barrel first you need to know what size container you are talking about. Lets back up a bit. That hollow, round container made of wood staves, the thing you see in old saloon photos is a “Cask” not necessarily a “barrel.” Casks come in many sizes and have all sorts of old time names. Pin casks are 5 gallons; kilderkins are 15 gallons; barrels are 50 gallons, and hogsheads are 66 gallons.

At Braeside Farm Distillery, you can buy your very own single cask of whiskey. We have many sizes to choose from. Check out our Futures page for more info.