Hey, remember these? Where I try a new drink every week? Yeah, that still happens, but they don’t get written up much. After a recent comment from a reader, I decided to crank out a quickie. You heard me.

This one involves a very special ingredient: Dr. McGillicuddy’s Cherry liqueur. The Lady Friend’s family is mostly responsible for introducing me to Dr. McGillicuddy’s, as they’re slightly obsessed with it, specifically the Mentholmint variety. It tastes like liquid candy canes, and is reportedly quite nice to imbibe while ice fishing. It’s a holiday family tradition in their world, and multiple bottles of it are gifted at the annual Yankee Swap. I have accrued quite a collection myself, and will admit that “The Doctor” makes a nice companion on a winter afternoon walk.

Having been introduced to The Doctor, I was aware that there were a range of flavors available, though never explored them until shopping in a NH liquor store this past summer. A fishbowl full of nip bottles (damn those bastards indulging my impulsive shopping tendencies) held a little surprise that caught my eye: a cherry flavor of the good doctor. I don’t know if I hadn’t noticed it before, but the cherry flavor intrigued me, so I added it into my order. Later that night “upta camp” with the Lady Friend’s clan, we passed the diminutive dram around the campfire for critique. The response was generally positive, and I quite enjoyed it. It’s more like cough drops rather than cough syrup, sweet “black cherry” tart, with just a hint of alcohol warmth. A nice change for the tastebuds after swilling beer all day long. After that I had meant to acquire more of this magical nectar, but somehow it got put off until this past weekend’s visit to NH (the land of lower prices, no sales tax, and no bottle deposits) when finally a full-size bottle was in my clutches. I wanted to mix it with something, and the sweet cherry practically begged to be paired with lime.

This one is an original, as near as I can tell. It’s basically a cherry daiquiri of sorts. Other recipes suggest using Cherry Heering (which has long been on my wishlist), whole/muddled cherries, blended cherries, cherry brandy/kirshwasser or even cherry-infused rum. The infused rum sounds like a good idea, but not sure if it’s actually that tasty in reality; I’ll have to try it out myself. I use a simple 2:1:1 ratio for my sours, with two part spirit, one part citrus, and one part sweetener. It’s an easy way to remember it, and allows you to switch liquors to make just about any sour. Vodka, lime, and triple sec is a Kamikaze. Whiskey, lemon, and simple syrup is a Whiskey Sour. Tequila, lime, triple sec gets you a Margarita. So rum, lime, and simple syrup is a perfect little Daiquiri. My plan was to substitute the cherry liqueur for simple syrup in a Daiquiri formula, though with a tweak. It’s my suspicion that the cherry liqueur, though sweet, is not as sweet as simple syrup, and wouldn’t be able to quite balance out the fresh lime juice in the recipe. So I eased off of the lime a bit, hoping the adjustment would keep the drink from becoming too tart. Here’s the recipe:


Dr. Cherry Daiquiri
A Squirrelfarts Original Concoction (apparently)

– 2 oz rum (Cruzan Aged)
– 1 oz Dr. McGillicuddy Cherry Liqueur
– 3/4 oz fresh lime juice

Shake this one, and get that fresh lime juice mixed well.
Serve in a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lime wheel. Disappointingly, my lime wheel sank to the bottom of the glass rather than floating nicely one top.


Nose: It smells as you’d expect: cherry and booze. There’s a slight antiseptic heat from the rum, which gives more of a Nyquil essence to the cherry notes.

Taste: Tart overall. The rum (a lighter variety) adds more boozy sting than anything else to the flavor. The cherry is certainly there in the flavor, and overall it’s like a cherry/limeade popsicle. As suspected, isn’t quite enough to balance the tart lime juice. It’s close, however, and a slight tweak with either more cherry or less lime would equal things out pretty well. I prefer my drinks more on the tart, rather than sweet side, so it’s close enough for me to enjoy it. With some booze. It’s pretty good, but the rum really doesn’t bring much to the table here. A nicer, more flavorful rum would certainly add more complexity and some complimentary vanilla notes, perhaps bringing along some molasses sweetness. A drop or two of bitters wouldn’t be out of place here either, but it’s a pretty good start.


Now I’m tempted to use this cherry liqueur in a Manhattan-style drink. That could be… dangerous…

Liquid Riot’s Fernet Michaud

[Note: Technically, the German ones are actually “Kräuterlikör” (“herbal liqueur”) as the term “amaro” refers only to Italian liqueurs. With the rediscovery of more interesting European drinkables and the rising popularity of fernet, “amaro” in America has become more of a blanket term to describe bitter herbal liqueurs.]

Amari are said to have medicinal qualities, with their herbal blends acting as cures for indigestion and hangovers. I can vouch for their stomach-settling powers: next time you eat too much, follow it with a shot of Jäger. If you can stand the taste, it will soothe your stomach in minutes.


So, an amaro is a bitter herbal liqueur, and fernet is a type of amaro. Fernet Branca is the most recognized of the fernets, and has become more popular in this country following the craft cocktail resurgence. Allegedly, it’s so popular in San Francisco that bars have been putting it on tap. Fernet Branca has been known as the “bartender’s handshake,” an industry nod to fellow bartenders. Fernet Branca is often consumed at the end of a shift, bracing but bitter, counteracting sweeter beverages consumed earlier. These are taken less for their alcohol content (though Fernet Branca, one of the boozier examples, clocks in at 39%abv/78 proof) but more for the herbal digestif qualities. While amari vary greatly in flavor from orange peel to black licorice, fernet is more in the herbal camp. Fernet Branca, whose exact recipe is on Coca-Cola levels of secrecy, is said to contain 27 ingredients, including mint, rhubarb, chamomile, aloe, saffron, and cardamom. The flavor of Fernet Branca is a bit difficult to describe, given the varied ingredients, but some stronger components are black licorice, mint/menthol, and eucalyptus. It’s often compared to mouthwash with licorice, though usually by people who don’t enjoy the flavor.


With such a divisive flavor, what can you do with this stuff? Aside from taking it neat or on the rocks to sip, it mixes surprisingly well. Fernet Branca and Coca-Cola is the national drink of Argentina. Fernet and ginger ale makes a lovely drink at the end of a boozy weekend, and will set you right for Monday morning. Due to its bitter taste, fernet can be used in place of cocktail bitters: a Manhattan with a good dash of fernet is called a Fanciulli. Or, you can use it as the base spirit itself, as in the Hanky Panky or aptly named Fernet Branca Cocktail.


Now that you know what a fernet style amaro is, let’s taste Liquid Riot’s version.

Fernet Michaud
82 proof/41%abv
Aged 6 months in Maine blueberry wine barrels

Nose: Minty, but not harsh, both bright peppermint with softer and sweeter spearmint. More toothpaste compared to Fernet Branca’s antiseptic mouthwash. Soft potpourri, dry wood. No alcoholic sting.

Taste: Warm. Mint, wood, spice, bark. On the drier flavor side, more bark than fresh mint. Slight syrupy viscous mouthfeel, but not coating. fresh mint tingle finish. Very nice.

Here’s how they make it: Fernet Michaud (Fur-nett Mee-show) starts with a base of neutral grain spirit (NGS). It’s run through the still and filtered like their vodka, but is wheat based, rather than a more traditional grape brandy start. The NGS is infused with 22 herbs and ingredients in stainless steel drums over a period of three days. Some ingredients, like aloe, birch bark, and rhubarb root, are added on the first day to allow them a longer time to steep. They’re also the harder, more root-like ingredients that need more time to soften and release flavor. Day Two brings some anise, fennel, and licorice, and finally three types of mint are added on the third day, as these are more potent and would affect the flavor too much to be added sooner. The infused spirit is then aged for 5-6 months in Maine blueberry wine barrels. They’re not looking for too much barrel flavor here, but rather getting the ingredients to rest and mingle the various flavors. After the aging is over, the fernet is backsweetened with some agave nectar (the same used in their agave spirit), filtered, and bottled into a 750ml wine bottle, complete with Liquid Riot’s cap and swing top.


While there are some other amari and bitter liquerus around, at this time no other specific fernet is being produced in Maine, or even in New England. That’s why it’s kind of a big deal, and makes this a very unique product, though likely with a bit of a niche market. Though the flavor may be a bit of an acquired taste, the digestif properties of fernet are well worth it. The herbal qualities will set you right if you’re feeling nauseous or overfull. It’s magical.


Fernet Michaud releases Thursday, December 17, 2015 at Liquid Riot’s Commercial Street location, and retail shelves including RSVP over the weekend. The 750ml bottle is priced at $31.99, very competitive to Fernet Branca’s ~$30 (in Maine), a surprisingly small difference for a local craft product. A second batch will be released soon, and the distillery hopes to have this product in a fairly regular production. Go try a bottle.






SquirrelFarts is now accepting solicited product reviews! Send me a bottle and I’ll take a pretty picture and talk it up in the amusing tangential manner you’ve come to expect. Beer, spirits, mixers, whatever. Contact here for details. Note: I will mention that the review was solicited, hell, I’ll even brag about it. Free booze? Damn right. But The Man says I have to say I got it for freebies. I’m excited about free stuff, so whatever. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it, or that I’ll give it a good review. But chances are if you read this blog, then we’ll get along. Put it to the test: send me your booze!

Yes, the mill smokestack really is that tall.

Gin palace.

So, it’s a gin still. Why gin? Because it requires the least amount of equipment needed to produce a final spirit. Bimini Gin starts from a purchased neutral grain spirit (NGS) base, which means no fermentation (and its related equipment) is needed on site. Since gin is essentially flavored vodka, you can save the first step of distilling your own base spirit and buy an NGS. You’ll still need some space needed for creating the various flavors in the gin however. The NGS is loaded into stainless steel tanks for resting and macerating the botanical ingredients. Some of the ingredients include grapefruit peel, coriander seed, some malted barley, and strangely, hops (Mt. Hood variety). Two tanks are used for a batch, each with a different blend of botanicals that blend nicely together. After one to two days, the contents of a tank is pumped into the still. The still boils the mixture, the dephlegmator helps refine the vapor, and it’s cooled into liquid booze pouring out the spout. After distilling separately, the two flavored batches are combined. They’re left to rest for about six weeks to let the flavors develop further, and off-gas some of the higher, harsher alcohols. The high-proof spirit is then diluted down to a drinkable 94 proof with a uniquely local Maine ingredient, water from the Saco River, the shores of which the distillery’s mill is built on.


Bimini Gin
94 proof/47%abv
American Style

Nose: Sweet, warm. Barley grain, lime sour/citrus. Juniper pine, but not overpowering, perfect for the American style.

Taste: Hot start with a sweet flavor, honey. Citrus and juniper rush into the middle for a snap, followed by a sweet cereal grain finish.


The aim of Bimini Gin is a lighter, highly drinkable spirit, the session IPA of gin. Though the abv is still decently high, the crafted flavors shine through. Case explained that gin generally falls into three categories: herbal, spicy, or citrus. He didn’t really want to fit into any of those, and began with a base of hops, adding flavor without the traditional punch of juniper. From there he added citrus (grapefruit peel), some coriander seed, and even malted barley as a botanical. Chamomile adds a floral element, and being a gin, there is of course some juniper. Case was looking for the perfect gin and tonic for sunny days and warm weather, a refreshing but long term drinkable spirit. Inspired by Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream, Bimini is a lovely spirit for warm summer days (or reminding you of the warm summer days). As I say with most of my gin reviews, I’m not a gin drinker, but I like this one. Maybe I’m turning into a gin drinker after all.




Round Turn Distilling is located at 32 Main Street (Building 13W) Suite 103 in Biddeford, ME. They’re to the right of Portland Pie Company, in the same hallway as Banded Horn Brewing Co. There’s a small parking lot in front of the building, but also ample street parking along Main Street. Check their Facebook page for current tasting room hours, serving samples of Bimini Gin as well as an assortment of cocktails (usually with jazz records playing in the background).

Michaud’s version starts with 100% organic blue agave syrup, rather than roasting and mashing his own agave piñas. A less-refined grade of syrup is used to carry over more of the agave character; like rum production, the more processed and refined your base ingredient is, the more neutral the flavor will be. Blackstrap, the lowest grade of molasses, is great for rum because of the flavors that carry through the distillation. The same technique is applied here for the agave syrup, though as a high-demand product, it costs twice as much as the molasses used in Liquid Riot’s rum production. Once fermented, the agave wort is distilled to about 130 proof and barrel aged. This batch sat for about seven months in used whiskey barrels (bourbon and single malt) to impart even more smoke to the final product. If this were a tequila, it would be equivalent to a reposado, or rested, variety.


So why isn’t it tequila? Well, the name “tequila” is applied specifically to a protected designation of origin product made from blue agave in the state of Jalisco, Mexico (and a few other limited locations in Mexico). This basically means to officially call it tequila, you have to make it in Mexico. It’s a protected term that guarentees that the product is what it claims to be. Bourbon, Champagne, Calvados, and Cognac are all protected terms for certain products. A Champagne-style wine from California is “sparkling wine” because it wasn’t produced in the Champagne region of France. There’s no such thing as an Irish Bourbon, because bourbon must be produced in the United States. Aguardiente de Agave is basically a tequila, but Maine isn’t quite in Mexico, so you can’t legally call it that.


Ok. History and legal stuff done. Let’s taste it.


Aguardiente de Agave
80 proof/40%abv
Aged 7 months in used whiskey barrels (bourbon and single malt)

Nose: Sweet, as you would expect from a syrup-based product. Smooth honey and butterscotch, floral, with an acetone sting. Very slight smoke/spice. Opened up after the first sip.

Taste: Starts spicy and peppery with a smoke char. Some decent heat, but not unpleasant burning. Eases to a sweet syrup, with dry vanilla barrel flavorings.

Very nicely done. I got a lot more flavor and aroma after taking my first sip. For some reason, the initial taste was fairly neutral and sugary sweet. The second sip really brought forth more of the expected tequila-like flavors of smoke, spice, and agave sweetness. I was also able to compare with the unaged (blanco) version. The aroma was much more neutral, honey/agave sweet, but without burning the nose, despite the 120 proof. Flavor was initially sugary and gritty, as if there were sugar granules in it. Very hot, but doesn’t burn your mouth off, again surprising for the high proof level. Excellent flavors of smoke, spice, honey syrup. Balanced well and upsettingly drinkable at high strength.


Tequila is not my preferred spirit. I can appreciate a good one, but given the choice, I’m reaching for whiskey. However, Aguardiente de Agave isn’t technically tequila, and I thought it was very tasty. It dials down the rough smokey char and medicinal boozy qualities of many other tequilas, and winds up as a refined sipping spirit, with some sweet rum-like qualities. Because of the high cost of agave (it’s the most expensive raw ingredient the distillery uses), the price point on the bottle is a little higher, solidifying the spirit’s status as a sipper, rather than a mixer. Take it neat, over ice, or in a spirit-forward cocktail, like a Tequila Manhattan. For a sipper, you’re going to want something enjoyable to relax with, smooth, and with plenty of flavor. This one delivers.


Aguardiente de Agave’s release party is Friday, November 20th, 2015, coinciding with Mexican Revolution Day, a holiday of which I was Americanly unaware. Find further details on the event page here. Bottles are available for sale at the distillery and retail for $42.99 for 375ml.






SquirrelFarts is now accepting solicited product reviews! Send me a bottle and I’ll take a pretty picture and talk it up in the amusing tangential manner you’ve come to expect. Beer, spirits, mixers, whatever. Contact here for details. Note: I will mention that the review was solicited, hell, I’ll even brag about it. Free booze? Damn right. But The Man says I have to say I got it for freebies. I’m excited about free stuff, so whatever. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it, or that I’ll give it a good review. But chances are if you read this blog, then we’ll get along. Put it to the test: send me your booze!

Four aged spirits are now on sale: a dark rum, oat whiskey, rye whiskey, and single malt whiskey. These are 375ml bottles, but are somewhat unique. Firstly, they are not corked but capped with attractive logo-screened red bottle caps. That’s great the first time you open it, but then what? Well, the bottles also incorporate Grolsch-style swingtops to seal after the bottle cap is removed. Pretty cool. I haven’t really seen this with a spirit before. The swingtop caps make a tight seal – tight enough for carbonated beverages – so they’ll work just fine for the spirits. Michaud also mentioned that, per their branding, the 375ml longneck resembles a bottle suitable for a Molotov cocktail. I’ve seen other distilleries selling rum in a wine bottle, so it’s nice to see Liquid Riot putting more thought into a container that will look attractive on a bar.

This first several batches of spirits were aged in 10 gallon oak casks, though the current batches (in progress) are in full-size 30 gallon barrels. With smaller barrels there is more wood-to-spirit interaction, and you don’t need to age quite as long, ideal for a small distillery to have an aged product in a few years, rather than five or more. The larger barrels allow for longer aging, which will help mellow the spirits and make a smoother overall flavor. Larger distilleries use this technique and have a huge volume of various barrels ages to choose from, blending to create a consistent flavor profile. Liquid Riot is also beginning to use this process of aging spirits, called the Solera Method, for their dark rum and Rum Riot collaboration rum. Basically, the idea is to have continuously aging spirits to blend into newer spirits. For example, this is the first batch of their aged spirits, so there’s nothing to blend. Next year’s second batch will blend both this year’s and next year’s spirits. Batch 3 will be a blend of batches 1, 2, and 3. And so on. Eventually, the consistency of the spirits improve as there are more batches to blend, but for now it’s only the first that’s ready. The other aged spirits are all single batch: no age blending. This is where it all starts. Let’s have a taste.


Dow’s Demise
Dark Rum | 90 proof
Aged 17 months in used Tuthilltown Bourbon barrels
The name references Portland’s “Father of Prohibition” Neal Dow, the mayor who caused a deadly riot. Happily, there are now three craft distilleries and nearly a dozen craft breweries in Portland alone. Suck on that, Neal. This spirit was the first “pilot” batch for the aged spirits, and it’s recipe differs from the Rhum Blanc white rum. Where the Blanc is made mostly from evaporated cane sugar, a more agricole style, the dark rum recipe uses more blackstrap molasses. Traditionally, darker rums were made mostly, if not entirely, from blackstrap, as there isn’t too much else you can do with that lowest grade molasses other than distill it (or feed it to cows). Dow’s Demise is not as heavy as a traditional style, mixing in some of that cane juice from the Blanc recipe.

Nose: Light and sugary. Not as funky as a true dark rum (not as much blackstrap). More like an “aged” rum than a dark rum.

Taste: Warm start, builds to a hot middle. After the burn eases, flavors of sweet floral sugar remain, though not too heavy or sticky.


Old Port Oat Whiskey
90 proof
Aged 18 months in new charred American oak barrels
Oat whiskey is an odd thing. It’s not terribly common, due to the reluctance of oat grain to ferment. The grain bill here uses roughly 2/3 oat and 1/3 malted barley. Having never tasted an oat whiskey before, I was intrigued. We were able to sample this alongside the unaged version, Old Port White Oat Whiskey.

UNAGED
Nose: Oats! Horse feed, grain, soft bread. Lovely and unique.

Taste: Warm, soft grain flavors. Sweet and… oaty. Bread, oatmeal, and Ireland. Odd, but nice.

AGED
Nose: Sweet oat grain once more, but with cinnamon, vanilla, and oak woodiness. Oaky oats.

Taste: Cinnamon spice up front, with lots of cherry fruit, vanilla, and oak wood. A soft grain flavor as well. This is remarkable. Very nice, and it was the Lady Friend’s favorite of the bunch.


Old Port Rye Whiskey
88 proof
Aged 14 months in new charred American oak barrels
This is an American Rye Whiskey, which by law has some rules for its production, much like bourbon. The grain bill must be at least 51% rye, distilled at >160 proof, and aged in new charred American oak barrels at >125 proof. Age it for at least two years and you can call it a straight rye, though this one is just over a year old at 14 months. The grain bill here is just over 51% rye, with the remainder made up from malted barley, and oddly, a small amount of brewers’ chocolate malt.

Nose: Some heat in the nose, aromas of chocolate sweet with a spice. The combination is reminiscent of Mexican mole sauce.

Taste: Medium heat to start, but not too hot. There’s a spicy grain snap, which gives way to a coffee roast, dark chocolate bitter. Balances surprisingly well. Finishes with cherry fruit, a touch of vanilla, and oak wood.


Old Port Single Malt Whiskey
88 proof
Aged 13 months in used Tuthilltown Bourbon barrels
This is the second spirit that is aged in used bourbon barrels. Liquid Riot is working on a bourbon of their own, and will eventually use their own bourbon barrels for aging other spirits. Used barrels have a worldwide market of their own, and it’s not particularly cheap to get them. The more materials used in-house, the better, unless you’re going for a specific flavor you know you can only get from a certain barrel. This single-malt is a Scotch in everything but name (a protected term: Scotch may only be made in Scotland).

Nose: Caramel, butterscotch, toffee. Delicious nectar. There’s a touch of smoke char, but not too overwhelming. No peat smoke, just charcoal.

Taste: Charred smoky flavor transitions to sweet caramel. Barley cereal grain, cherry fruit, and a mild smoke lingering in the finish.


The dark rum was the hottest of the bunch, and will likely benefit from more time aging in the larger barrels. While still tasty, it did still have some of the fire of a younger spirit, despite being 17 months old. The uniqueness of the oat whiskey must be sampled, as it’s quite remarkable, and rather unlike any whiskey I’ve had before. The rye was also unusual, as that small amount of chocolate malt comes through in the flavor. One more rye designation is the labeling of a “straight” rye, which must be aged for at least two years. Though the rye was among the younger of the spirits at 14 months, perhaps the shift to larger barrels will hit the magic two-year mark and add another credential to the label. The single malt is on the lighter end, without too much smoke, and lacking the peat of its Scottish brethren. Still, it’s a lovely little sipper, not too hot, sweet and tasty. A summer night Scotch.

Liquid Riot Bottling Company Gift Shop
250 Commercial St, Portland ME

RSVP Discount Beverage
887 Forest Ave, Portland, ME

Bow Street Distributors Clients
(Various)

SquirrelFarts is now accepting solicited product reviews! Send me a bottle and I’ll take a pretty picture and talk it up in the amusing tangential manner you’ve come to expect. Beer, spirits, mixers, whatever. Contact here for details. Note: I will mention that the review was solicited, hell, I’ll even brag about it. Free booze? Damn right. But The Man says I have to say I got it for freebies. I’m excited about free stuff, so whatever. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it, or that I’ll give it a good review. But chances are if you read this blog, then we’ll get along. Put it to the test: send me your booze!

More? Oh, very well.

• Produced in America
  Well, Seabrook. Close enough.

• Made from grain. Bourbon must be at least 51% corn.
  Big check here. V5 is made from 100% organic corn. I’m calling it a single mash, since it only has one grain (not to be confused with single MALT). SQD sources their corn as locally as possible, and gets much of it from New England farms.

• Nothing added (except water)
  Bourbon is all-natural. Can’t put any caramel coloring, sugar, flavoring, or anything else into it. Water is allowed, used to dilute the spirit to the proper proof. SQD uses NH spring water.

• Aged in new, charred, oak barrels.
  Yep. SQD uses a #3 char in 5 gallon white oak casks. This batch of V5 is aged for seven months.

• The spirit coming off the still can be no more than 160 proof/80% abv
  V5 distills right in that ballpark.

• Cask Strength is 125 proof/62.5% abv
  The bourbon proof has to be lowered to at least 125° before aging in barrels. V5 goes in at the full 125°.

• Bottled at 80 proof/40% abv or greater
  V5 clocks in at a respectable 90 proof, so we’re good there.
  

Appearance: It’s light, but still hued appropriately. More honey yellow than amber. Decent sticky legs.

Nose: Honey and corn. Vanilla, grainy, grassy. Slight warm alcoholic twinge, but not a burn. Sweet and smooth.

Taste: Corn, corn, corn. Sweet corn. A warm heat builds in the middle, and eases off to oaky vanilla, a dry woodiness, and corn syrup. There’s a little cherry fruit in there as well, and a touch of smoke. Not a long finish, but a grainy/grassy taste remains. It’s sweet, but not sticky. The flavors of the oak add a floral vanilla essence, and the heat helps cut through the sweetness. Very well balanced.


Like the other SQD products, the simple grain bill really helps give the spirit a tasty flavor without too much heat. Despite the 90 proof, there isn’t any real burning, and the booze nicely balances the corn sweetness. It’s not the most complex bourbon I’ve had, as you get more complexity with a varied grain bill using rye, wheat, barley, and other grains for different flavors. A longer aging period would also help to create some more complex flavors, as the spirit draws tannins and flavoring out of the charred oak staves. However, with a simple grain bill, that could lead to off-flavors and undesirable esters, and here the flavor doesn’t suffer for want of longer aging. It doesn’t have the maturity of a 5-year barrel, but it also avoids the raw harshness of unaged white spirits. A very good compromise.

This is a limited-edition product, and SQD produced about 500 bottles (375ml size) from their eight, 5-gallon casks. That certainly qualifies as “small batch” as indicated on the labels. It retails for $23.10 for a 375ml bottle, and is available only at the distillery. Go pick up a bottle while they’re around. This small batch won’t last much longer, and there’s no telling when a new one will be available.

Squirrel Farts is now accepting solicited product reviews! Send me a bottle and I’ll take a pretty picture and talk it up in the amusing tangential manner you’ve come to expect. Beer, spirits, mixers, whatever. Contact here for details. Note: I will mention that the review was solicited, hell, I’ll even brag about it. Free booze? Damn right. But The Man says I have to say I got it for freebies. I’m excited about free stuff, so whatever. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it, or that I’ll give it a good review. But chances are if you read this blog, then we’ll get along. Put it to the test: send me your booze!

Banded Horn is throwing corn into the grain bill for Wicked Bueno (“very good” for those who don’t speak New England/Spanish) to get that sweet lager flavor. However, adding corn means – let’s face it – it’s an adjunct lager. Yes, the A-word has become a foul curse among the craft brew faithful, but there’s a reason. The American Adjunct style generally refers to the macro-brew conglomerates (Bud, Miller, Coors) whose flagship pilsner-style lagers are brewed from a variety of grains. Barley is expensive, and when you brew 40 million barrels a year, it adds up. If you can cut your product with something cheaper, lower your costs, and expand your volume, you’ve just made even more profit. Just ask Tony Montana. It’s drug-dealing, not rocket science. Miller’s grain bill is amended with corn, whereas Budweiser uses somewhere in the neighborhood of 30% rice.

Appearance: Pale yellow-green, light straw color, slightly hazy (unfiltered).

Nose: Corn. Then some cereal grain, and a grassy hop. Like freshly mowed grass however, not too sharp, very damp. The corn aroma is reminiscent of an unaged whiskey without the heat. There’s also a slight floral tinge, though likely the hop again. Grain and grass.

Taste: Oooh. Fresh corn on the cob. I can almost taste butter. This would be amazing paired with a salty dish. Light, refreshing, but flavorful. There’s a slight nibble of bitterness from the hop on the sides of the tongue, and a slight dryness.

Lady Friend: *Sniffs* “Smells like a lager.” *Sips* “…but it has flavor. It’s nice and grainy. Corn! Yes. Popcorn. This would go well with a nice seafood dinner. Fish tacos, perhaps?”


Es muy dilicioso.
You could drink this all day. Summer beer. Beach, boat, barbecue. It’s not a hop bomb (which can be a struggle on a hot afternoon), but a sweet corn elixir with just enough grain and grassy hop to give it a dry finish, and prevent an overly sweet brew. Forget the lime, you won’t need it. This is Corona, Maine style.

There’s been a trend in root beer flavored adult beverages lately, and some of them are pretty good. The only problem is, they just don’t have ENOUGH booze for my go-go drinking lifestyle. ENTER THE BOB’S. I saw these bottles come up on my Instagram feed, and had to investigate. A root beer flavored whiskey sounds great in theory, but could also drag you down to the depths of insulin panicking sugar levels and the fire of a thousand cheap grain alcohols. I’m willing to take that chance. So I contacted Uncle Bob’s, and they sent me a bottle with its primary hued label.

Uncle Bob’s Root Beer Flavored Whiskey is produced by Founders 49 Distilling and Whiskey House, a division of the LeVecke Corporation. LeVecke is a wholesale distributor, bottler, and spirit rectifier based in Mira Loma, California. They are an independent family-owned company since their founding in 1949 as a beer distributor. Currently, their annual sales exceed $100 million, and they produce over 2,500 spirits and cordials. This is the other side of the liquor industry: not small batch, not craft products, but an industrial producer of spirits. It’s pretty interesting. LeVecke produces private label spirits for liquor stores/retailers (if you’ve ever seen “Kappy’s” or “Atlas” brand bottles on the shelf, they generally come from a rectifier like this) and contract bottling for the bigger distilleries, handling their overflow. For example, if Jim Beam needs to produce more of their Honey flavored liqueur but don’t have the space in their production schedule, they can ship the ingredients to LeVecke for production, blending, and/or bottling. With 2,500 different types of products in the lineup, there’s a lot of different flavors offered. Like root beer flavored whiskey.


Uncle Bob’s Root Beer Flavored Whiskey “blends aged Whiskey with natural Root Beer Flavors” to create a 70 proof (35%abv) spirit. It’s been marketed to the college-age crowd who are growing weary of Fireball’s dominance, but still want something “tasty” to drink out at the bars, because college kids are awful at drinking real booze. However, the younger drinkers do posses a crazy brand recognition and word-of-mouth advertising value to spirit producers, and apparently Uncle Bob’s has been a hit, especially in Wisconsin, because of course. But just because college students drink it, doesn’t mean it’s any good. So let’s have a taste.


Uncle Bob’s Root Beer Flavored Whiskey

Appearance: Pours a deep ochre brown color, with thick sticky legs. I suspect there’s lots of caramel coloring in there to hit the right hue. Initial impression is that it will be too syrupy.

Nose: Floral and spicy. Vanilla, sugar sweetness, sarsaparilla, birch bark, anise, and an underlying alcohol heat. It smells just like root beer, with a touch of booze, though not anywhere near as hot and brash as expected. Very pleasing.

Taste: Syrupy, but not as much as expected. Warm start builds to a medium heat, especially on the front and sides of the tongue. Sweet vanilla, tangy licorice and birch bark flavors, with a sticky, lingering finish. The alcohol is warm but not hot; Fireball has a similar amount of alcohol at 66 proof, but “tastes” hotter, due to the cinnamon. Here it’s warm and creamy, rather than hot and spicy. Plenty of sugar and stickiness, but like the heat, not as much as expected.

It’s… actually pretty damn good. It smells like root beer with little booze, and tastes the same. That’s not a bad thing at all (assuming you like root beer to begin with). They really nailed the root beer flavors, and struck an excellent balance between sugar syrup, alcohol, and flavoring. It’s actually a bit surprising, as products like this are not generally known for their balance and attention to detail. Whoever created this recipe spent some time on it, as it very easily could have gone too sweet or too hot. Well done.


This bottle traveled upta Camp over Memorial Day weekend, and came back fairly wounded. The Lady Friend’s father quite enjoyed it, and he too was surprised by how tasty it was, reminding him of purchasing Hires Root Beer extract syrup to mix their own soda when he was a child. I agree: it’s just as if you poured a bit of whiskey into a glass of root beer. Immediately thoughts of root beer whiskey floats spring to mind, an after meal digestif taken neat, or sipping on the rocks as a dessert drink by a campfire. It’s a little too sticky for high-noon style drinking, but perhaps in a tall glass with ice and a splash of soda, this would really be refreshing. The root beer flavoring has enough complexity on its own that you don’t need to look for the whiskey notes, which come through as a nice warm glow.

Maybe the college kids are on to something.


Uncle Bob’s Root Beer Flavored Whiskey is currently available in the Northeast in Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island. Other states of distribution include CA, WA, NV, TX, OK, LA, KS, NE, SD, ND, MN, IA, WI, MI, WV and four additional states by the end of the year. Average retail price is $19.99 per 750ml bottle.






Squirrel Farts is now accepting solicited product reviews! Send me a bottle and I’ll take a pretty picture and talk it up in the amusing tangential manner you’ve come to expect. Beer, spirits, mixers, whatever. Contact here for details. Note: I will mention that the review was solicited, hell, I’ll even brag about it. Free booze? Damn right. But The Man says I have to say I got it for freebies. I’m excited about free stuff, so whatever. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it, or that I’ll give it a good review. But chances are if you read this blog, then we’ll get along. Put it to the test: send me your booze!

Happily, the rumors are true, and Smoky Quartz is doing just that. The Lady Friend and I ventured back to the 603 area code for some Papa Gino’s lunch, tax-free/no bottle deposit shopping, a stop at the wonderland that is the NH State Liquor Store, and a visit to Smoky Quartz Distilling (SQD). The distillery is set back a bit from Rt 1, but it’s right across the street from Leather & Lace, the aforementioned adult-themed store.

The foundation of SQD began in 2008 during an air raid in Iraq. Then on his third deployment, owner/founder Kevin Kurland flipped through a copy of the Wall Street Journal while under fire and read about the growing trends in craft brewing and distilling. After returning home, he gathered four other veterans as partners, took an intensive distilling workshop at Koval Distillery in Chicago, pooled savings and VA loans, and jumped in. Officially started in 2013, the distillery was a bare shell of a building in the beginning, and a year of construction followed to create a suitable production environment, with much help from family members. Drains were installed, floors poured, walls framed, and a ceiling knockout built for the height of the still column. Owner/Manager Kevin Kurland oversees the day-to-day operations, currently distilling three main products, a white whiskey, a white rum, and a vodka. Aged spirits are still, well, aging, and the run of bourbon is currently a limited-edition item. The emphasis at the distillery is twofold: the veteran heritage of the owners, and the domestic, ideally local, sourcing of materials from bottles and glassware to grain and casks. The Smoky Quartz name comes from the official state gem of New Hampshire, and is often found embedded in granite, the Granite State’s official rock.

Frank Kurland Jr., Kevin’s brother and co-owner, took some time away from his bourbon-glazed brisket preparation to give us a tour through the distillery. The mash tun is an ex-Navy cook kettle, built in Shippensport, PA in 1953, with some extensions fabricated on to hit a 300 gallon capacity. Grains, water, and yeast are cooked up and moved to IBC (intermediate bulk container) polyethylene fermenters to sit and let the yeast eat sugar and poop alcohol. In the winter, aquarium heaters are added to keep the yeastie beasties warm, happy, and fermenting (yeast has to be warm, but not TOO warm to thrive, a common issue in New England’s bi-polar seasons). After fermenting to a low-alcohol (usually around 8-12%abv) the mash moves into the still, a 300 gallon stainless steel, steam jacketed affair with an eight plate column. The mash is heated, and since alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water, the alcohol vapor moves up the column leaving the water (and solids) behind. The plates in the column help purify the vapor at each step until reaching the top, where the alcohol cools, and condenses into liquid. Happy happy liquid.

That’s how they make it. Time to taste it. Although Frank Jr. gave us some samples of the rum and bourbon during our tour, we needed (NEEDED I SAY) to taste the whole lineup. The Lady Friend and I adjourned to the tasting room/retail store where distillery associate Jackson poured and enthusiastically discussed the spirits. Sidenote about Jackson: he visited the distillery last year, and was so taken by the experience that he basically started hanging around and helping out until they actually hired him. He is currently the only non-family member and non-veteran employee of the distillery. Well played, sir. Unrelated further information: through the magic of Teh Facebooks, I discovered that Jackson is married to a girl I know from high school. Because that is how New Hampshire works.


Granite Lightning Moonshine | $26.99 | 750ml | 100 proof
Made from 500 pounds of ground organic corn, this is an unaged (white) whiskey. Mash bill is 100% corn.

Nose: Musty, grain aroma. Not much heat. Corn sweet, slight fruity esters.

Taste: Mild syrup mouthfeel, smooth. Ends with a sticky corn sweetness. Warm start builds to a medium heat, but never harsh and hot. Delightful for a 100 proof unaged spirit.




Solid Granite Vodka | $26.99 | 750ml | 80 proof
Same 100% organic corn base as the moonshine, distilled 5-8 times for refinement.

Nose: Similar slight musty grain aroma without much heat. Clean, with a hint of sweetness.

Taste: Clean. Mild heat, not hot. Slight sticky corn sweetness. It’s apparent that this is a corn spirit. Very nice, though a little flavorful for a vodka.




Granite Coast Rum | $25.95 | 750ml | 80 proof
A white rum distilled from Grade A (the first squeeze of sugarcane, on the opposite end of the scale from blackstrap) Louisiana molasses fermented with Champagne yeast.

Nose: Sugar. Floral and vanilla frosting. Very mild heat. One woman in the tasting described it as “butter-rum Lifesavers.”

Taste: Sugar but with some heat in the middle, the warmest so far, but still not too hot. Slight dry yeasty finish, with sweet floral elements. Tasty.

We also tasted a version that was aged for two months on charred white oak staves. Similar qualities, but with the expected enhanced oaky vanilla aromas and flavors, and a sweeter finish.


V5 Bourbon | $23.10 | 375ml | 90 proof
Read our full review here
100% organic corn mash bill (seeing a theme here?). Aged for seven months on white oak 5 gallon casks with #3 char.

Nose: Vanilla and cherry. Slightly dry, oaky aromas, and sweet without smoke or heat.

Taste: Sweet, but not overly so. Honey. Heat builds in the middle, gives way to dry vanilla oak, cherry fruit, and a slight smokiness. Nicely balance, a good drinker. Don’t have to baby this one with tiny sips or added water, as the heat is more warm than hot.

Overall, I was impressed. What struck me most about all four spirits was the mild heat, and lack of burning hot booze you get from younger spirits. Usually, a spirit with some punch is mellowed a bit by aging, though here even the clear liquors were smooth and warm, none of that hot brashness. The distillers owe this to the simple mash bill: you can’t really get more pure than one main ingredient (well, three if you add water and yeast). All of the grain spirits run a 100% corn mash, with the rum consisting of just Grade A molasses. In fact, Grade A is the good stuff. Historically blackstrap molasses was used to make rum because it wasn’t much good for anything else. On the flip side, blackstrap will give you more complexity, as will a varied grain bill for the other spirits. Whiskey gains flavors from the addition of rye and barley to their mash bills. The SQD spirits may not be the most complex, but it’s pleasing, rather than boring. They were all supremely drinkable and smooth, despite the proximity to a plutonium reactor.

Finishing up our tour, we poked around the retail space, with dark wood boarded walls and a variety of products. All products come with a 10% discount for veterans. The military themes are displayed in the tasting/retail space, with many medals, aircraft pictures (there was a B-25!), and this highly coveted WPA/FAP/New Deal style art of the planes that constantly fly over my parents’ house.

Smoky Quartz Distillery is open to the public for tours and tastings, with hours listed on their webpage and Facebook. Granite Lightning Moonshine, Solid Granite Vodka, and Granite Coast Rum are available in NH State Liquor Stores, many MA stores thanks to Abacus Distributing, and at the distillery. V5 Bourbon is available at the distillery only, while it lasts. Look for the Squirrelfarts review of V5 bourbon, coming soon. Many thanks to Kevin, Frank, Jackson, and the SQD crew for having us. Keep the booze coming.

This happened because of rum.

Oh, and it was 160 years ago.


The Portland Rum Riot describes the events of June 2, 1855. Mayor Neal Dow had enacted Prohibition in 1851, which became the nation’s first state-wide ban of alcohol, and was thus called the Maine Law. In 1855, Dow decided he needed some “medicinal” rum on hand, and stored $1,600 worth ($32,000 in present value) of rum in the basement of city hall. Local citizens, deprived of alcohol themselves, saw this as Dow flouting the very law he had imposed on them, and they decided to seize the booze. A mob formed at city hall, and Mayor Dow called out the militia, a contingent of 24 light guardsmen. When the mob did not disperse, Dow ordered the militia to fire directly into the crowd. Despite initially refusing, on the second order the militia did fire, and killed 22-year-old John Robbins of Deer Isle, ME. Seven others in the crowd were also wounded. The mob fled, and shortly thereafter Dow was brought up on charges, not for the murder, but for improperly acquiring the rum. He was acquitted, but the damage to his anti-alcohol cause resulted in the repeal of the Maine Law in 1856, some 64 years before a nationwide Prohibition was enacted in 1920. John Robbins was buried in an unmarked grave in Portland’s Eastern Cemetery while Dow went on to become a Brigadier General in the Civil War and later, in 1880, the first Portlander to run for President. The violent events of the Rum Riot (and the Beer Riot of Chicago) foreshadowed the gangster-fueled mayhem of national Prohibition, proving that people are willing to kill, and be killed, for their right to imbibe.


Since I live in Portland, I decided to attend several events in remembrance of this incident. Though largely forgotten, it had a widespread impact on Prohibition and the perception of Temperance zealots for years throughout the nation. The Friends of Evergreen, a local non-profit formed to protect and preserve the city’s Evergreen Cemetery which contains many notable citizens (Neal Dow is buried there), hosted a number of events throughout Rum Riot week. The first I attended was a ceremony at city hall, under the gaze of Longfellow’s portrait in the State of Maine Room. FOE Executive Director Jessica Siraco gave a brief introduction, followed by Mayor Michael Brennan presenting a proclamation of the Rum Riot events, and noting that we must remember the past, and “be certain we won’t have a similar situation while I’m mayor.” The proclamation reads:

*Note: the ceremony was supposed to be in Monument Square, the location of the old city hall and the riot. Rain prompted the move indoors to (current) city hall.

Following this was a talk by historian and former State Representative Herb Adams, detailing the events of the riot in vivid detail while also noting the irony that “the commemoration of the Rum Riot was washed out by cold water.” (Despite last week’s 80°+ July-like weather, we’re back to an April feeling with 50° temps and rain for the first few days of June. Because New England.)

After the ceremony, I struck out on my own Rum Riot tour. The first stop was the scene of the event itself. Old City Hall once stood in Monument Square (then Haymarket Square) in the center of Portland, between Congress and (then) Middle streets. Today, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument (Our Lady of Victories), dedicated to the 4,000 Portland men who fought in the Civil War, stands in its place, and is a popular gathering place for locals and tourists, surrounded by restaurants, and the Portland Public Library. The site is in the center of the city and has much history behind it aside from the riot.


Further down Congress Street is the Neal S. Dow house. Built in 1829, the house still stands and is both a museum to Dow and the headquarters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Maine. Dow is called both “The Father of Prohibition” and sometimes the “Napoleon of Temperance” for his unflinching views. The WCTU formed back in the 1870s as a bunch of religious women who wanted to ban alcohol. Sadly, with the growing Temperance Movement, they gained momentum ultimately becoming a political power resulting in their goal: the 18th Amendment enacting national Prohibition in 1920. After 13 violent years which didn’t accomplish much towards creating the WCTU’s “sober and pure world” (their words), the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933. National Beer Day (April 7) and Repeal Day (December 5th) reflect the dates which legalized beer and liquor respectively. Since moving to Portland, I’ve made it a point to drink a toast on Neal Dow’s lawn every December 5th. He won the battle, but not the war against demon rum. I chatted briefly with the woman who was running the museum that day (she said I was just in time for tea) but declined the tour, which costs $10. I told her of my travels that day and she asked what side of the alcohol argument I stood on. I replied “pro,” and left shortly thereafter.

Back down Congress past city hall to retrieve my car, I rolled down the hill towards the ocean, and parked on Commercial Street, the waterfront road that becomes inundated with tourists from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Fortunately the cold, dreary weather kept them scattered, and I found a spot directly across from my next destination: Liquid Riot Bottling Company. Formerly known as In’finiti Fermentation & Distillation, Liquid Riot is run by Eric Michaud, who also owns Novare Res Bier Cafe, a destination craft beer bar just up the road off of Exchange Street. The space on Commercial Street is more of an anomaly, housing a restaurant, brewery, AND distillery all under the same roof. Eric’s brother Ian runs the distillery, and gave me a tour of their setup. They’re running a 100 gallon steam heated still with separate pot and four-plate column sections. They need three 100 gallon batch runs per spirit, since their stainless open fermenters have a 300 gallon capacity. Though their vodka, white rum, and white whiskey are already on local shelves, their aged products are due to be released later this year after 1.5-2 years of resting in barrels, which fill the small distilling space. For the Rum Riot events, Liquid Riot is collaborating with the other two Portland distilleries, New England Distilling and Maine Craft Distillers, to create a Rum Riot dark rum, utilizing a combined recipe and barrel aging process from all three distilleries. I got to taste some of the 180 proof spirit running off of the still: sugar sweet and hot, clear but for a slight straw tinge.

After chatting with Ian for probably too long about the ins-and-outs of distilling, Eric set me up with a taste of their Rhum Blanc, a white rum that leans towards an agricole style. Fermented from mostly sugar cane juice, Rhum Blanc uses a small amount of molasses for sweetness.

Nose: Sugar sweet, vanilla, light floral elements.

Taste: Warm sugary start builds to heat with a dry finish. Slightly yeasty in the end. Not as pungent or grassy as a true agricole style, this is a drier rum perfectly suitable for sipping or mixing.

The final parting shot of the Portland distillers was a good way to finish off my Rum Riot day. Prohibition is truly dead in Maine, the place where it started. Drink some rum; people have died for it.


The Friends of Evergreen do have several more events lined up through the week, including a talk on the history of rum by author Wayne Curtis, and a cocktail party at Bramhall in Portland on Saturday. Visit their Facebook page for more details.