The Spirit World

After spending time talking with the distiller at St. George Spirits, I made my way back into the tasting room. It was there that I made my way through their entire line-up of products, plus more. We started with the vodkas. Hangar One vodka is the most distributed product of their line-up. They have a straight vodka and several flavored. As mentioned in the first post, they were making Mandarin Blossom during my visit. Their version is very floral with a bright mandarin taste. It would be perfect over rocks and is great in one of my favorite combinations, Mandarin and Tonic. (Note to bartenders here. When you serve Mandarin vodka with tonic, do not garnish with lime! Use an orange, please! Or, at the very least, ask the customer what they would prefer. Thank you.)

Their other standard offerings include a Kaffir Lime and Citron “Buddhas Hand”. They seem to take what have become “normal” vodka flavors and then add their own twist. So the Kaffir Lime is made with both the fruit and leaves of the lime popular in Thai cooking and the Citron is made with an odd and interesting fruit that imparts a highly citrus taste and smell. Each of these vodkas has a very clean feel, yet the essence of the fruit is bright and intense, maybe because these are some of the most perfumed vodkas I’ve tasted.

They are also currently producing a Raspberry, which I think may stay in the lineup, and I tasted a Wasabi Vodka that just screamed to be added to a Bloody Mary! It’s a limited version production and may not be widely available. In addition to these retail versions, I got to taste a pepper vodka they were making just for internal use. I believe they were using Ancho chilis for the infusion. Again, another great Bloody Mary option.

Next, onto the eaux de vie. I was very excited to try these, as they are not available in my area and I was not disappointed. This is a powerful line of fruit distillations that will knock your socks off! Again, they have a standard list of offerings which is occasionally supplemented with limited releases.

You will find this line under the Aqua Perfecta brand. The standards include: poire (William Pear); framboise (raspberry); kirsch (cherry); and a grappa. Again, these have a beautiful clean taste, although the alcohol is definitely face-forward! But even with the alcohol the fruit is evident and plays the starring role in these distillations. I adored their grappa, as the grapes played as much or more of a role than the alcohol, which is not the case with many grappas. I also tasted a special edition Apple Brandy that called my name loud and clear. It is only available at the tasting room. This brandy will be great for sipping, as well as, add just the right touch combined with toasted walnuts on warmed Brie, among other things!

In addition to the eaux de vie, they offer two liqueurs under the Aqua Perfecta brand, a framboise and a poire. These liqueurs are double goodness. They use the same fruit used for the eau de vie, basically make a juice and then fortify it with some of the eau de vie. Both the pear and the raspberry taste so much like fruit from the tree (or vine) that it is hard to believe. Then you get that little alcohol kick and wow! These are only 20% alcohol, compared to the 40% of the eau de vie, so the fruits really have a chance to shine.

For the final part of my tasting I sampled the two items that had actually brought St. George Spirits onto my radar, their single malt whiskey and the Qi Lapsong Souchong Tea Liqueur. The single-malt whiskey, labeled under the St. George Spirits brand, is smooth and slightly sweet. I’m still learning about single-malts so it’s hard for me to give detailed tasting notes but I liked it a lot. I’m not positive hard-core single-malt whiskey fans would find it complex enough - then again, that might just be that the sip I had didn’t give all the background tastes time to develop - and of course by this time I’d had, ummm, several generous tastes of everything mentioned above so it’s possible my tastebuds had just been overloaded. But I would buy it and will, as soon as it makes it’s way to my liquor stores.

My final taste was of the Qi Lapsong Souchong Tea Liqueur. If you like Lapsong Souchong tea, this liqueur will knock your socks off. It is deeply smoky, like the tea but with a little alcohol kick. I really wanted to bring a bottle of this home but had already selected too many other items by that time. I’m not sure that I would drink this straight too often, but I think the smoky flavor would add a really nice twist to lots of different cocktail combinations. I guess I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed that it makes its way north sooner rather than later.

I would highly recommend making the trop to Alameda to sample St. George Spirits various offerings. The quality of the liquor, as well as the friendliness of the staff, makes this a fun side trip from San Francisco.

For a little more information on the Poire Liqueur, see my Culinary Fool post.