My excitement for Tales last year was nearly indescribable short of making obtuse Star Trek references, and this year is no easier. I am now at a loss as to how convey my utter joy without pointing to Dune, MacGyver, or maybe even Stan Jones for advice. Last year, I met a host of cocktail bloggers for the first time, and we had a grand time gallivanting around New Orleans and invariably ending up at Lüke every night.

But the fun extended well beyond that sweat-soaked week. We all became good friends, decided to drink together online every Thursday night, and in the process have created an awesome organization that happens to be putting on a little show of its own the weekend before Tales. We’ve rented an old Victorian house where a bunch of us are staying and have set up a bar that will likely be unparalleled in its array of homemade syrups, booze, and acts of hilarity.

Excitements!

With all that said, though, there are still a few things I’m looking forward to this year:

1. First and foremost, hanging out with some of the sexiest cocktail beasts on the planet
2. There is a kold draft machine at our bar. Yes, for real. Along with 80lbs of glacier ice shipped in from Alaska.
3. Running workshops with Jamie Boudreau and Darcy O’Neil on cocktail photography and a session with Martin Cate and Tiare Olsen on cocktail garnishing – both at Drink.Write 2009.
4. Judging an infusion content with Chantal, from the Tabard Inn, and Gabe on Wednesday night
5. Watching as all the virgin bloggers’ heads explode at how awesome the whole event is
6. A slap-fight between Blair and Matt as to whether Bacardi or Don Q is the superior white rum (well, that actually might not happen, but Gabe and I do have a boxing match planned.)
7. Tons of sessions at tales – everything from Citrus to Japanese bartending. Perhaps I should finalize my schedule?
8. Getting to meet Tiare in person for the first time. Let’s see what happens when two people who already use too much Ting and JWray are at the same bar together…
9. Eating jambalaya at Coop’s Place and stuffing down so many beignets that people start to think I’m addicted to powdered sugar. (Oh, and if you need to find out where else to eat, look at Chuck’s tome on the subject – I’ll surely be following it.
10. Spirited Dinner at GW Fins, with Jeff Berry and Martin cate sloshing up tiki drinks for us all night.

What are you looking forward to most?

Tales of the Cocktail is anticipated, hot, and maniacally joyful. The event draws cocktail creatures of every ilk and creed to New Orleans for way too many days of imbibing and revelry. To be blunt, it’s deadly and awesome. Rad, even.

Last year I posted some lessons learned from Tales of the Cocktail. Some are worth repeating, but a new year brings new menacing decisions, so I offer these 10 rules to help guide your path should you choose to attend the liver-sacrificing event of the year.

1. Do eat as many beignets as you can stuff in your gaping maw.
2. Do not order an absinthe frappe if you find yourself at the Old Absinthe House past 1am. Or at least don’t order five of them.
3. Do pack white shirts, lots of deodorant, and a hat. Also, wear lots of dresses. Even if you’re a guy. Seriously, you’ll thank me.
4. Do not, by any means, consume anything that is bright red. Pat’s Hurricane, I’m talking to you.
5. Do stop by anytime at the Mixo House, sponsored by the CSOWG, as the bar will be better than any in NOLA.
6. Do not look to the left or to the right when walking down Bourbon Street, lest you be sucked into a cesspool of excellence.
7. Do reference the Mixoloseum Twitter feed if you want to know where all the bloggers are at any given time. We understand this may be used in order to avoid us.
8. Do get jambalaya from Coop’s Place.
9. Do take every muddler you receive and give it to Paul Clarke.
10. Do not, by any means, adhere to any rules or preconceptions you’ve brought with you.

What Rules Have I Missed?

Post additional rules in the comments!

KP Question

1. What lessons did you learn from Tales this year?

4:34pm – Robert Hess takes the mic to talk about bitters. He ran into Abbot’s bitters on ebay. It survived through prohibition, unlike many bitters, but it wasn’t made past the 60s. No one knows what happened to the company, family, or anything about its demise. After finding the ingredient list for Abbot’s bitters, Robert tried to recreate the bitters and failed. His next attempt was using tinctures, basically taking a single herb or botanical and soaking it in alcohol. This got him close and they became his house bitters. Here is Robert’s recipe for Abbot’s bitters.

50-50 Manhattan

• 1 1/2oz Rittenhouse 100-proof rye whiskey
• 1 1/2oz sweet vermouth
• 2 dashes Deragon’s Abbot’s bitters
• orange peel, for garnish

Stir with crushed ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist the peel over the drink to release the oils.

4:43pm – Tonka beans, a potential ingredient for the bitters, aren’t allowed by the FDA since they contain a blood thinner, so bitter makers are looking for substitutes. Wikipedia on the Tonka bean

4:45pm – Paul grabs the mic and begins to talk about how he got into making his own ingredients. One of his first was a simple one, grenadine. The sample of Tequila por mi Amante makes it way around. The recipe is super simple. 1qt strawberries and 1 pint of tequila. Chop strawberries, cover and let sit for 3 weeks. Strain.

Marguerita

• 1oz Tequila por mi Amante
• 1/2oz Partida reposado
• 1oz St. Germain
• 1/2oz lime juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

4:49pm – One of his favorite ways to mix it is with lime juice, a little salt, and grapefruit soda.

4:51pm – Paul moves on to a tiki staple, falernum. The first available was velvet falernum, and it was quite hard to find. He quickly began to develop his own recipes… now he’s at number 10. It’s surprising that he omits the lime juice, which is common for falernum used in tiki drinks.

Falernum #10

• 6oz Wray and Nephew Overproof rum
• zest of 9 limes
• 50 cloves, toasted
• 2T blanced, slivered, almonds, toasted
• 1/2t almond extract
• 1 1/2oz ginger, peeled and julienned
• 14oz 2:1 simple syrup

Soak dry ingredients in rum for 24 hours. Strain and add simple syrup to taste.

4:55pm – Erik takes the stage to talk about Swedish punsch. Haus Alpenz carries Batavia-Arrack, which can be used to make Swedish punsch. The Biffy Cocktail is absolutely delicious.

Underhill Swedish Punsch

• 2 750ml bottles of El Dorado 5-year
• 1 750ml bottle Batavia-Arrack van Oosten
• 8 lemons, sliced thin and seeded< ?li>
• 750ml water
• 8t Yunnan Fancy China Black Tea
• 2 crushed green cardamom pods
• 4c washed raw sugar

Mix all to hell.

Biffy Ccoktail

• 1 1/2oz Death’s Door gin
• 3/4oz Swedish Punch
• 3/4oz lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

5:01pm – Erik is now covering orgeat. Oh God, his recipe is delicious; I will definitely be making this. Here it is:

Underhill Orgeat

• 550 gram blanched and roughly chopped almond & (optional) apricot kernels
• 150 grams blanched and finely minced almonds & (optional) apricot kernels
• 3 liters water
• 9lbs of sugar
• 1 cup Brandy/Cognac
• 2 tsp Orange Flower Water
• 1/4 oz per liter Natural Almond Extract

5:09pm – Jamie again brings it with the smack. “I’m Freakin’ Lazy, but those damn spirit companies (you know who you are) don’t make what I want, don’t make what I want – but won’t give it to me, or charge too much for what I want.”

5:11pm – “I’m a media whore, and it gives them something to write about.” No really, Jamie makes his own liqueurs because he wants unique flavors. You can make adult syrups, wine and beer syrups, lambics, shrubs, etc. We now have a table full of cups, filled with cocktails, syrups, and craziness. This panel is excellent.

5:17pm – Jamie is now going into his unorthodox process of making bitters. The best way he found to maintain consistency was actually to avoid using the specific recipes. He places each flavor component for the bitters in a separate jar. This allows him to use different spirits to pull out flavors, like vodka for orange bitters or cognac for Christmasy spices.

5:20pm – Filtering is tough. A coffee filter takes -forever- and sucks. Jamie actually uses a water filter to strain the bitters. People worry the charcoal will wash away the flavors, but Jamie disagrees. Now it’s time for Jamie to bash Eric Seed (lovingly, mind you). He’s using Swedish punsch as an example; you don’t always have to start from scratch… you taste rhum agricole, tequila, scotch, cardamom, sugar… then Eric Seed comes out with Batavia-arrack. You can make a simple punsch just by adding cardamom and sugar. “The only reason we use the Batavia-arrack for Swedish punsch, so why didn’t he just make Swedisch Punsch?”

5:25pm – Now Jamie moves to Amer Picon. After first tasting and experiencing a new flavor, he immediately decided to rip it apart and figure out how to recreate it. Here is his Amer Picon recipe.

Nirvana Cocktail

• 2oz Rittenhouse 100-proof Sazerac Rye Whiskey
• 1oz Amer Picon Replica
• 1/4oz maraschino liqueur
• 1/4oz Benedictine
• 1 dash cherry bitters

Stir with crushed ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Here is another recipe to use the Amer Picon.

Liberal

• 1 1/2oz rye whiskey
• 1/2 sweet vermouth
• 1/4oz Amer Picon
• 1 dash orange bitters
• orange peel, for garnish

Stir with crushed ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

5:33pm – Daniel from PDT is now talking about fat washing. Render the bacon, add it to the whiskey and freeze overnight. The fat floats around in a nice little ball, so just remove it. This tastes ridiculously good. The whiskey is so smoky, fatty and perfect. The Ben’s Old Fashioned uses this bacon whiskey, with maple syrup, and bitters.

5:38pm – Jamie was bored and drunk at home, so he took his leftover truffle popcorn and threw it in cognac. “It was almost like the essence of truffle in cognac.”

5:41pm – This panel has definitely served more cocktails and spirit samples than any so far. And for that, they should be commended.

A momentous thanks to Chef Chris DeBarr, Jeff “Beachbum” Berry and his lovely wife, and Wayne Curtis for making a magical evening for all of us. I greatly enjoyed the spirited dinner at the Delachaise last year, but this blew it out of the water.

For your salivating pleasure, here is the full menu (taken from Chef Chris’s blog) and some pictures:

A Cocktail to Begin

Ginger Grant
Lime, Orange, Honey, Domaine de Canton, 10-Cane Rum, Bittermen’s Tiki Bitters

Swanky Canapes

Tonga Zombie
Lime, Pineapple, Funkin Passion Fruit Puree, Cruzan Estate Light, Bacardi 151, Old New Orleans Rum

• Tiki Ceviche– hake, with cloudy sake & rambutan puree, coconut vinegar, lime juice, and tropical fruit
• The Green Hornet– cucumber rounds with marinated mackerel and Hendrick’s Gin-cucumber-red chile granita
• Lafcadio’s Sushi– rose petal rice with furikake and Lake Pontchartrain flounder

Bongo Appetizers

Pamplemousee Punch
Grapefruit, Rhum Clément Creole Shrubb, Old New Orleans Cajun Rum, Angostora Bitters and Herbsaint

I only included this picture to make fun of Seamus for not enjoying the delightfully crisp shrimp heads.

• Grilled Endive “Outrigger Canoes” with crab and jackfruit, umeboshi plum sauce
• Phnom Penh Pork Belly featuring Kurobuta pork braised in star anise caramel sauce, with “forbidden” black sticky rice and bamboo shoots
• Wahine Shrimp– jumbo LA. shrimp roasted “in a grass skirt” of ketaifi (shredded phyllo) with grilled pineapple and a lemony New Orleans barbecue sauce
• Black Bean & Banana Blossom Pupusa, with salsa verde, Salvadoran slaw

Big Kahuna Plates

Luau Coconut
Lime, Pineapple, Coconut Water and Coconut Milk, Cruzan Estate Light and Dark Rums

• The Green Zebra goes to Oz: a tomato trilogy – macademia-crusted green tomato in a bush tomato profiterole with tomato chutney, blue cheese, durian ice cream, and wattle seed mole
• Cochon de Lait Wearing Hawiian Sunglasses: Kahlua pork wrapped in banana leaves with roasted sweet potatoes and Hawaiian sea salt
• Buddha’s Jade Serenity Scallops: togarishi seared sea scallops on a bed of green tea jasmine rice with home made dashi and crisp kombu seaweed in eel sauce and fried lotus root chips.
• “The Old-Fashioned” Gulf Fish Menuiere: based on the classic cocktail, with a brown butter of bourbon, tangerine/satsuma juice, Luxardo Marischino Cherry Liqueur and Fee Bros Whisky Barrel Bitters, over parsnip mash, with sea beans and edamame

Tropical Dessert

Bandicoot
Macademia Nut Liqueur, Kahlua, Coconut Milk

• Baked Hawaii– Tiki-carved meringues hiding macadamia nut and Hawaiian honey semifreddo and a cake layer of roasted pineapple and crystallized baby ginger. Based on the famous Baked Alaska, but in a tribute to our 50th and most tropical state! Doused with spiced rum and sent to the table on fire

4:35pm – We’re going to discuss how taste works, things that affect taste, taster status, do a taste test and cocktail trail. There are three kinds of tasters: non-tasters, normal tasters, and super-tasters.

4:38pm – The tongue can taste sweet, salty, bitter, sour, savory, and metallic (saved for New Orleans vampires). Spiciness and coolness are more sensations, but can be worked with in cocktails. There is even a reward system in the brain for water.

4:41pm – The obvious category for cocktails is sweetness. Super-tasters can be extra sensitive to sweetness, especially with fake sugars which can taste bitter. Sugar when mixed saltiness, acidity, and bitterness reduces the intensity of those flavors.

4:44pm – Adding salt to a cocktail increases its sweetness. Acidity increases saltiness and bitterness and reduces sweetness. Darcy is touching on the super-cool miracle fruit. It makes things taste insanely sweet: soy sauce tastes like candy, lemons like lemonade, etc. Savory increases sweetness and saltiness and reduces acidity and bitterness.

4:48pm – Bitterness uses 50+ taste receptors, while the others only use a few (this is why Fernet Branca and Campari are so delicious). Many of the taste buds on the tongue will never be used if you don’t drink cocktails.

4:54pm – Adenosine Monophosphate or “anti-bitters” can be used to drastically reduce the bitterness of cocktails. If you’d add it to grapefruit juice, it would remove all the bitterness, and you’d just taste the flavor of the fruit.

4:56pm – Viscosity has a huge effect on flavor. Things like egg white, gelatin, agar, pectin. If you increase the viscosity of a cocktail it will increase its sweetness.

4:59pm – As you increase the strength of a cocktail, it becomes less sour but more bitter.

5:00pm – The panel is discussing how its important to develop your taste for bitters. Many of us have grown up on Count Chocula and Lucky Charms, so we have to attune our palate. Though we think most super-tasters avoid bitters, there is a class of super-tasters who seek it out to enjoy the bitters like a rollercoaster ride.

5:10pm – Robert Hess is telling a fun tale about his quest over time to enjoy Campari. He asked a flight attendant for it… straight, and hated it. Then he proceeded to order drinks at bars with it, still thinking “Wow, this tastes like Campari,” and not enjoying it. But then it started to catch on, and now he enjoys is straight. Well done.

5:13pm – The easiest way to reduce bitterness in a cocktail is to add salt. You can also increase viscosity, add sugar, reduce the alcohol, or cut the acidity too.

5:15pm – Our two drinks are the Greyhound and the Salty Dog. The only difference is the salted rim on the Salty Dog; it’s amazing how it reduces the bitterness of the grapefruit juice.

Greyhound and Salty Dog

• 1oz Bombay Sapphire
• 3oz grapefruit juice

Shake with ice and strain into a glass filled with ice. Salt the rim for the Salty Dog.

5:17pm – Certain aromas can increase the sweetness without changing any of the ingredients in the cocktail. A strawberry on the rim can do this. Gin is loaded with compounds that reduce sweetness, like rose and orange flower water. Most botanicals don’t have a specific taste. For example, vanilla doesn’t really have a flavor but an aroma. There are certain woods or aromas that we’ll really enjoy the smell of but won’t please our palates.

5:20pm – Milo Rodriguez, the master distiller of Bombay, is talking a bit about how he is experimenting with the botanicals in their gins, like cubeb pepper, orris (violet flavor), and grains of paradise.

5:24pm – Now we’re moving on to the mental and social affects on taste. Elevated serotonin allows you taste bitter and sweet at lower concentrations. Let’s say you drink a ton of delicious alcoholic beverages, enough to get a hangover; the next morning the same drinks that you were enjoying will taste like crap.

5:29pm – Flavorful drinks are good served to low key people and perky people may not like bitters. When you’re down drink tiki drinks… when you’re happy Darcy says to keep it low key, but he meant to say, “Drink more tiki drinks!”

5:34pm – Bloggers are the “curse of the drinking world” since we influence people’s drinking choices. We help trends like absinthe, classic cocktails, rare spirits, etc.

5:42pm – Time for the taste strips! 20% of the population doesn’t have the TAS2R38 gene, which means they’re non-tasters. 60% are normal tasters and 20% are super-tasters. PROP is a genetically specific chemical that can identify tasters and non-tasters. Women are more likely to be super-tasters as well as those of Asian and African descent. 35% of women are super-tasters and 15% of men. Men’s taste declines more rapidly. Many children have super-taster powers and grow out of them.

5:46pm – Non-tasters often enjoy spicy, salty, and fatty food. The perceive ethanol as slightly sweet and often consume the most alcohol. They also tend to weigh more than super-tasters.

5:47pm – Super-tasters have problem foods like grapefruit, coffee, soy, chili peppers, tonic water, salt, and olives. Chefs tend to be super-tasters. There are actually more chefs that are non-tasters than normal tasters. A drink may be 4-8x more intense for a super-taster than a non-taster.

5:53pm – We’re tasting the strips. A ton of people around the room are gagging from the bitterness. Us tiki folk are either tasting wet paper or a slight bitterness.

5:59pm – Many of the panels have been great so far, but this one has kept the room captivated throughout. I now have a whole new perspective on the recipe comparisons I’ve been doing on Kaiser Penguin.

12:42pm – Here are the cocktails for the session:

Winchester Swizzle

• 1 1/2oz Bacardi 8
• 1/2oz Rock Candy Syrup
• 1/4oz falernum
• 1oz lime juice

Serve over crushed ice.

Rum Punch

• 1 1/2oz Rhum Clement VSOP
• 3/4oz lime juice
• 1t grenadine
• 1/4oz rock candy syrup

Shake with ice and strain into an ice-filled mug

12:47pm – “A basic rum punch is basically the DNA of all great rum drinks.” And with that from Wayne, we get our Rum Punch. Rum is the key ingredient of North American history. Tequila has had an impact, but rum has been important through the ages, from when it was first developed. You should definitely read Wayne’s book, And a Bottle of Rum, so I don’t have to summarize all this lusty history.

12:56pm – There were about 160 rum distilleries in Boston around 1760 as rum spread into the New World. Rum was cheap from the beginning; the stuff was wretched and cheap. It was mixed with lots of sugar and citrus to make it palatable or steeped with cinnamon nutmeg or cloves. Flip was one of the more interesting ways to consume rum; mix strong beer, lots of rum, molassas or dried pumpkin, and stick a red-hot plunger into the canister to burn it. Wayne, of course, had an iron monger make one of this tool for him.

1:02pm – It looks like we’re going to be getting some fun kits for making punch during the session! Chesterfield takes the mic and immediately captures everyone’s attention with his boisterous delivery. He’s detailing the process for making their Mount Gay rum, which is based on molasses. From the fields, while still green, to the factory for knifing. It’s combined with extracts from limestone, then boiled until thick and it crystallizes producing a combination of brown sugar and molasses. It’s then spun to separate the two. After that it goes to the stills.

1:09pm – The rum samples have started to come around: Mount Gay Silver Eclipse and Extra Old. And now we’re making our own punches with the rum. Everyone is fumbling around with lime wedges, sugar cane syrup or demerara syrup, our rums, some nutmeg, cute little bottles of Angostura (Craig H. conveniently dumped in about 2 teaspoons in our punch), and some water. This display of neanderthal drink creation is vastly amusing and producing tasty results.

1:20pm – Ben, from Clement, takes the mic to talk about rum agricoles. The first sample, Clement Premiere rum made its way to our table. He’s detailing the process of their rum, made from sugarcane syrup, which must follow AOC laws.

1:31pm – Ben is now making a Ti Punch. His is passed around; it’s quite nice and smooth.

Ti Punch

• A slice of lime with equal parts skin and lime
• 1/2oz pure sugar cane syrup
• rum of your choice

Squeeze the lime, add the sugar syrup and rumive it a quick stir, and you’re done.

1:40pm – Angus Winchester jumps up and takes hold of the crowd. This is a captivating panel so far! Pirates, romance, crazy old rums sold for thousands of dollars. He points out how various rums often find their way into the same drink, something that doesn’t often happen with other spirits (you’ll rarely find two ryes in a single manhattan). Our Winchester Swizzle comes up and Angus rhymes the recipe for us.

1:44pm – “Are you a pirate or a naval officer?” Angus has delved into tiki drinks, and I’m too entranced to concentrate on typing… :)

1:55pm – Falernum, bitters, pastis, pimento dram, gold, demerara rum… just imagine everything tiki and that was the last 10 minutes.

1:56pm – A question was asked as to each panelists’ favorite rum cocktail. Ben’s favorite is new every week. Chester’s favorite is rum and coconut water. Wayne’s is the Ti Punch. Angus’s is “the one your about to buy me,” but then he goes with the Nuclear Daiquiri, a mix containing Wray and Nephew overproof rum and Chartreuse.

2:01pm – Favorite white rums… Angus goes with Havana Club and Appleton Silver. Wayne goes with New Orleans white and Prichard’s. Ben seconds Prichard’s and white rhum agricole. And Chesterfield goes with Wray and Nephew white and Mount Gay.

10:51am – Germans were the second largest owner of bars in the 19th century; German wine was one of the most prevalent. But they also were the ones adding fun touches, new techniques, and in general, just making more interesting cocktails. They were also liqueurists as well. They made their own absinthe, curacao, etc.

10:59am – The “only” William, William Schmidt, a German and bartender was one of the most vocal cocktailians of the time. The Weepers Joy was one of his famous concoctions. He made famous for drinks containing the most ingredients and the craziest, poetic names. The secret of his art was his complex use of ingredients. He was really one of the first bartender writers to look beyond the bar; he even put ice cream in drinks for his female guests.

11:09am – He created a drink called the Which, a mix of lime juice, orange juice, sugar, old Tom Gin, brandy, sherry wine, egg white, and a few other ingredients which I missed. “A man who drank three of them asked nothing but “Which?” the rest of the day.

11:11am – Ted chimes in, “He made some good drinks, but by and large his drinks were hideous.” David has a description of him mixing the Hobson Cannonball: “One of its charms is its mystery. The ingredients are those of the Gin Fizz, and the proportions are the same. He who makes it works like an experienced military man… a ram of lemon… drink is poured into a long cylinder, and a glass is placed over it… nothing can exceed the rapid manner in which the Hobson Cannonball is shaken.” Basically a gin fizz that he stamps his foot when he pours it.”

11:16am – The ability to make ice was considered artificial ice, because you didn’t get it off a lake. Sparkling water not from a spring was near magic. When Jerry Thomas was mixing, you couldn’t get a Manhattan. Sweet vermouth, though in the U.S. was just not prevalent.

11:18am – Drinks were rolled at that point, but the shaker became associated with Jerry Thomas. Bartenders began to become more professional and less flashy.

11:21am – Vice districts began to concentrate in Chicago, San Francisco, New York as proponents of prohibition began to creep into society, and their bartenders began to get taken down one after another by the supports of temperance. They looked at drinking as the route cause of all the good and bad in these districts.

11:27am – “Everyone thought cowboys were drinking Rrrye, but in fact, they really liked creme de cacao,” says Ted. And the Pousse Amour; they loved that too. It has an egg yolk suspended in the middle sandwiched with layers of liqueur. David chimes in, “It tastes disgusting!”

11:31am – Our second cocktail is the Martinez.

Martinez

• 1 1/2oz gin
• 1 1/2oz sweet vermouth
• 2 barspoons Maraschino liqueur
• dash absinthe or two of orange bitters

Stir with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass

11:35am – Ted comments on how the liqueurs and spirits we’re drinking now are as good or better than what everyone was drinking so long ago.

11:39am – Brian Rea has been hilarious throughout the entire panel. Now they are talking about Trader Vic, Don the Beachcomber, and Pat O’Brien, who apparently was also a wizard with rum. We have discussed many times this weekend how his Hurricane must have been good at some point. Unfortunately, that time is long gone.

11:49am – Definitely check out Mud Puddle Books. They are republishing a bunch of ancient bar guides. Their attention to detail is crazy. Same fonts, same cover, etc.

4:37pm – Exciting! We’re going to get to try some moonshine.

4:43pm – There’s an excellent slide of Mountain Spirits by Joseph Earl Dabney on the screen. Joe, pictured on the cover, has definitely consumed his share of “corn likker.” Matt is now detailing the history through time of the making of corn whiskey. Salted with lead, dribbled with antifreeze, and flavored with dead possums and even chicken shit, corn whiskey has been made by many and obviously isn’t all good.

4:49pm – “Making your own liquor is honest labor.” Homebrewing has only been legal since 1978.

4:54pm – In the last 10 years, compact column stills have been able to produce clean, neutral spirits and are the future of home distilling.

5:03pm – Mike is about to begin speaking about the history and legality of distillation. The first known distillation was 3000 years ago and was essential oils, not spirits. The Art of Distillation published in 1651 has a plate showing a “still,” which is basically a sheep skin on top of a pot. The the flavor develops under the skin during the process.

5:14pm – Distillation spread throughout the world, away from monks and alchemists to the home, as Europeans sailed around the world for discovery and conquest. This displeased the church and government, who had a monopoly on spirit distillation.

5:17pm – Private distillation in England was banned in 1781 by the government to control their revenue. During this same time the whiskey rebellion was happening in the U.S. Whiskey, made from corn, was used as currency. In 1914, a French vineyard could distill 20 liters of Eau de Vie, but was required to pay a strict tax. And recently in 1996, much innovation has come since 1996, when private distilling was legalized in New Zealand.

5:24pm – You must have a Federal and State license in the U.S. to distill beverage alcohol which may take up to 3 years to obtain. The license includes an FBI background check. You have to have your distillery built before you can get the permit. You can’t distill alcohol in any building where people live, and the penalties for breaking the laws is dire.

5:27pm – It’s legal to own a still and operate it… but not with ethyl alcohol. Every household is allowed to make 300 gallons of wine and 300 of beer, but cannot turn a drop of it into whiskey or brandy.

5:29pm – Ian takes over to talk about the final cut in the distilling process.

5:45pm – This is so intense and way over my head. Let me show you: “Toward the end of the hearts phase, there’s the onset of a subtle bitterness. A small amount of this bitterness is usually important to the bite character of the spirit. But, very shortly after the onset of this bitterness is when the end-cut to the tails is made.”

5:47pm – Saved! The spirits are here! The first is Absolut vodka to base our tastes on. The second is Midnight Moon, a modern take on classic Appalachian moonshine. And the final is Barsol Pisco, which is quite magical.