Lets discus our first distillation. You walk into the working side of the distillery and the first thing you see is the impressive 250 gallon Hoga still, but when we were new to distilling and devouring books and blogs as fast as we could, we applied our new-found knowledge not on the Hoga, but on a small, copper still we call the ‘Baby Still’.

In the Still of the Night our first distillation

The Baby Still was the first still to arrive at the distillery. Our first whiskey runs were as romantic as we had imagined they would be. I remember warm nights with the rolling door open at the distillery and the moon in the sky, sitting with the Baby Still , hydrometer at the ready testing every small jar of whiskey that was collected. These days we use the Baby Still to test grain bills before we take them to production.

Slow and Steady

We treat our stills with great respect. They contribute to the flavors we produce as much as the grain, yeast and water do and we have invested a lot of time and patience. We learned to warm them up slowly and cook with a gentle heat. We discovered that distill in batches so that we get clear heads, hearts and tails cuts and a smooth, delicious spirit. You can taste this in our White Whiskey.

My Dad Taking Care of the Baby.

I learned a long time ago growing up on a ranch, that if you take care of your tools, they will take care of you. Both Baby and Hoga stills got a thorough cleaning this week thanks to my dad, Doc Brewer. Like anything else we do at the distillery, we researched and tested before we used anything on the source of our spirits . We use Bar Keepers Friend on the beautiful copper surface of the pot stills – it is super easy to use and does not scratch at all.

Read about Slow Food and the movement that was started by Carlo Petrini.