Ralph Erenzo stumbled into the whiskey trade. He had planned on building sleeping quarters for rock climbers who visit the Shawangunk Ridge. But after purchasing a 36-acre parcel in Gardiner in 2000, complete with historic farmhouse and 200-year-old gristmill, his neighbors blocked his every attempt to develop the climbing, camping, and bunkhouse concept he had imagined. So he turned to booze.
It happened in a roundabout way. Erenzo wanted to put the old farm to work, and he debated the merits of various agricultural products. He thought of grinding flour, but with the competition selling for two dollars a bag in every grocery store in the country it didn't seem like a winning plan. The answer came when electrical engineer Brian Lee strolled onto the property. At the time, Lee was enrolled in business school and he was looking for a project. They sat on an old wall overlooking a meadow and the Shawangunk Ridge in the distance, and they brainstormed. They discovered a mutual interest in the business of alcohol, and after some talk and a little thought, they decided to build a distillery.
"It was a blessing to go in ignorant, because if we knew what we were getting into we would never have done it," says Erenzo.
Erenzo is full of energy. He will scramble up a ladder or trot down the stairs at the least provocation. An avid rock climber and the owner of ExtraVertical, a climbing gym in Manhattan, Erenzo is not intimidated by a challenge. Lee is the mechanical brain behind the operation. Any given day might find the two of them welding pipes, hoisting 100-pound bags of corn, rolling kegs, judging ethyl-alcohol levels, and filing endless forms with the federal and state governments. The latter task—especially—requires a clear mind. As neither Erenzo nor Lee indulge in their products for more than tasting purposes, their faculties stay sharp.
After deciding to build a still, Erenzo flew to Europe. He had already made 30 to 40 climbing trips, but this time he was there to tour distilleries. He visited a grappa manufacturer in Venice, and then he toured other parts of northern Italy and France to learn about making cognac. He explored absinthe distilleries. He noted how European distillers and farmers have organized themselves to work in a symbiotic relationship that moves the raw materials from the farms to the stills. He got the idea that the process could work in the Hudson Valley, and recently he applied for a grant to create a similar collective.
 Taste-testing Vodka distilled from apples at the Tuthilltown distillery. |
"The laws are convoluted, overlapping, and redundant, and no one can explain why they are the way they are except to say they have always been that way. No one knows how to fill out the distillery bond form. Our attorney, who specializes in liquor law, didn't even know," says Erenzo.
In August 2005 they received an A-1 license for Tuthilltown Spirits, LLC, which makes the granary an official bonded premises. Now that they are allowed to make whiskey, brandy, rum, and vodka (and whatever other distillate they dream), they need convenient ways of selling their products. They would like to function as a winery by hosting tours and then offering spirits for sale. They would also like to see their beverages available by the glass in local taverns. Erenzo has filed applications for amendments to modernize the outdated laws which restrict a distillery to only sell through a wholesaler. For the producers of well-known spirits such as Jack Daniel's, Jim Beam, and Seagram's, wholesaling to liquor stores across the country is good business practice. But the microdistiller rightly fears his unfamiliar and higher-priced product would be lost on the shelves amidst a barrage of heavily advertised labels.
The changes that Erenzo proposes to New York State law would allow distilleries to sell their bottled products on site—as do wineries and breweries—without the need of a wholesaler; would allow wineries to sell any distillate made of New York State agricultural products; and would allow people holding a wine and beer license to sell any New York State product containing up to 24 percent alcohol. The bill, sponsored by Kevin Cahill in the Assembly and John Bonacic in the Senate, will likely come up for a vote this spring after a two-year delay.
Soju, the hugely popular distillate from Asia (it is something like vodka, though its alcohol content is a much lower 24 percent and its main ingredient is usually rice), is already legally sold with that license in New York and California. Current laws permit the sale of soju as long as it is imported from Korea. Erenzo shakes his head at the folly of this technicality. He wants to know where the sense is in forbidding the sale of a similar drink made locally and from 100 percent New York State-grown products. "The laws are prejudiced against growers of corn, potatoes, wheat, apple, pumpkin," he says.
Today, two-and-a-half years after they sat on the wall by the meadow, Erenzo and Lee are championing a new industry. Much like the boom in microbreweries a decade ago, they feel they are among the first in what is destined to become a booming business. Not that they expect their work to contribute to a rise in alcohol dependency.
"Microdistilleries will produce small amounts of highly priced artisanal alcohol. It will be too expensive to support an alcoholic habit," explains Erenzo. Rather, they see distillation as a way for small farmers to protect their land and livelihoods against the threat of monster farms and encroaching development. The products will be purchased by discerning consumers—people who want to know the sources of their food and drinks, travelers who wish to capture the flavor of the land, and account executives of corporations who desire a unique and personalized gift product.
 Brian Lee and Ralph Erenzo with their still. |
On a chilly morning in the middle of winter, Erenzo and Lee are at work. Standing before the monstrous copper, steel, and glass contraption that looks more like it belongs in the Air and Space Museum than on the attic floor of a granary, a tremor of excitement is in the air. For four days, 500 gallons of corn mash, yeast, and water have been fermenting, and now boast an approximate 10-percent-alcohol content. You wouldn't want to drink it, though; it would be a nasty, chewy mouthful. The concoction bubbles, ever so slowly, and the smell in the lower floor of the historic granary is thick, rich, and reminiscent of breakfast. The spirits are about to be coaxed from the mash.
Upstairs, Lee closes the hatch of the still, opens the valve, and the yellow glop flows through a large plastic tube from the fermentation tank and into the still on the upper floor. Erenzo charges the stairs two at a time and arrives to observe as the mash enters the still. The furnaces are on and the steam is forced into the double-walled chamber surrounding the copper pot. Inside, a huge metal arm turns and mixes and ensures even heat distribution. All eyes are on the temperature dials. After about an hour, Lee peers into the glass window on the still. "It's raining alcohol," he says. Condensation has begun.
The gaseous alcohol rises into the alembic helmet and up through a chamber. When it falls, it is guided out of the still into a metal drum by way of a funnel. An alcoholmeter floats in a tube and reads the distillate as it comes out of the condenser: As the level of ethyl alcohol rises, the alcoholmeter floats higher.
"The first vapors off the solution are the "heads" and are full of nasty bits, including amyl, butyl, propyl and methyl alcohols and other volitiles that are the stuff of legendary headaches and hangovers. The distiller cuts these out and discards them totally; the art here is exactly when to make the cuts. The middle of the run, the "heart," is kept. Toward the end of the run [come] the "tails." The distiller makes the final cut and returns the tails to the pot for redistillation," writes Erenzo in an online journal at the distillery's website.
With this in mind, they have named the apple vodka they are developing "Heart of the Hudson." This is selected from the middle of the run, and at 191 proof it is as pure as it gets. (The 191-proof alcohol, commonly referred to as "grain alcohol," is converted to beverage alcohol—80 proof in this case—by the addition of water in the final step of the distillation process.) The corn whiskey they culled on this winter day will later be blended with rye and wheat whiskey and aged in oak kegs. Retail sale of the spirits is imminent. Tuthilltown Spirits recieved the approval for the label in mid-February, and they are currently bottling. Local restaurants have put in requests, and consumers should look for Heart of the Hudson at sleected locations by early March.
It is perhaps Erenzo and Lee's proudest achievement that what they are making is all sourced from the region. They poured a glass of an apple spirit from a huge steel drum for a tasting. The strong liquid, which warms a sipper to her very toes, is made from apples grown in Columbia County, at Golden Harvest Farm in Valatie. The corn distilled today arrived as whole kernels from Hasbrouck Farm in Stone Ridge. They will make vodka from apples from New Paltz-area farms such as Dressel's, and Jenkins and Leuken's Orchard.
"Three hundred small farms are lost per week in the US to big farms and developers," says Erenzo. "The efforts we're making on the legal side are as much to help farmers as to help us." Corn whiskey, brandy, and vodka turn a heftier profit than unprocessed corn, apples, and potatoes. And countless millions of pounds are discarded each season because they are not pretty enough for market. Whether other small farmers build their own microdistilleries, or simply sell their uglier apples and potatoes to Tuthilltown Spirits, in the end farmers will sell what they grow, Erenzo and Lee will fill their still, and throughout the Hudson Valley and beyond, thirsts will be quenched.