January 7, 2025 • 17 mins
2024 Topsail’s Top Choice Awards:
- 1st Place - Favorite Craft Cocktails
- 1st Place - Favorite Full Bar
In this special bonus episode of Topsail Insider, join us for an exclusive tasting experience at Hidden Ships Distillery, led by co-owner Andy Szwejbka. Andy takes us on a flavorful journey through their award-winning spirits, from their meticulously filtered vodka to their bold barrel-rested rum and sherry-finished bourbon. With behind-the-scenes insights and fun anecdotes—like the “gin-terventions” for gin skeptics—you’ll feel like part of the fun…and probably want to treat yourself to a tasting yourself!
Book your tour and tasting on their website at https://www.hiddenships.com/tours
Topsail Insider is Sponsored by Saltwater Resort & Suites - Topsail Island’s premier luxury hospitality experience! Book your beach getaway today at SaltwaterTopsail.com or call (910) 886-4818!
Hosted by Christa Schroeder
Edited by Jim Mendes-Pouget | jimpouget@gmail.com
Send Christa a message! Please leave your contact information if you’d like a response.
Please Follow/Subscribe to Topsail Insider on your favorite podcast-listening platform!
Please also visit www.topsailinsider.com and sign up for our Mailing List where you’ll get early access to upcoming episodes.
Or leave a Voicemail for Topsail Insider right from the website - your message just might be featured in an upcoming episode!
Follow Topsail Insider on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube!
If you are a Greater Topsail business owner or nonprofit, Register to be a Guest on our website at www.topsailinsider.com!
Or if you wish to Sponsor or Advertise with Topsail Insider, please email christa@topsailinsider.com or call/text 910-800-0111.
Thanks - I’ll see you around Topsail!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
All right, take it away, andy, okay well welcome
everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I appreciate you being here.
We're going to go throughtasting.
We're going to have some fun.
Today we have all six spiritsthat we make here at Hidden
Ships Distillery.
You don't have to do all six.
You're welcome to do all six.
If you do, we call it a grandslam, but there's no pressure at
all.
I'm going to take you throughtasting notes on each.
We're going to start with Vodka.
Vodka which, I'll point out,just won a gold medal at USA
Spirit Ratings.
That's an internationalcompetition, so we're very proud
(00:27):
of that.
Vodka is kind of interesting.
I'll tell you, as a distiller,I wasn't super excited
necessarily to make it, becauseby definition, it's tasteless
and odorless, right Like that'swhat defines vodka.
So it's a little hard to getexcited about that.
I will tell you now, though.
I'm very proud of our vodka,not so much on how we distill it
but how we filter it.
We actually spend four daysletting this trickle through
(00:48):
this coconut carbon filtrationsystem, and I think, because we
give it that time, it reallytakes the bite off of it, and I
think it competes well.
So for this tastings, I want youto always smell them first, if
you just bring them up to yournose and here I'll hand you that
.
And when you smell them, what Iwant you to do is actually try
to keep your mouth open if youcan.
It's a hard skill, but Ibelieve in you.
I know you can do it.
(01:08):
And the reason you're doingthat is so that it kind of
dissipates some of the ethanolalcohol that would just
otherwise overwhelm the nose.
So go ahead and bring it up toyour nose.
You're going to give it thatsmell with that mouth open first
, and now again tasteless andodorless.
You shouldn't smell a whole lotwith vodka.
You just kind of just smelllike the ethanol.
It smells like maybe evenrubbing alcohol a little bit, so
(01:29):
you're not going to get verymuch on the nose.
When we do these tastings, Ialways want you to take a small
sip first.
So go ahead and take a smallsip whenever you're ready, and
all that's doing is getting yourpalate ready to receive some of
the flavors.
So with that small sip, yoursecond sip can then be a little
bit bigger.
You don't have to finish it,but you can, if you want to, and
now you're going to get some ofthe flavors that may be in
there.
(01:49):
Now again, taste this inodorless by definition, so we
don't want a lot in there.
Actually, at the awardscompetition it was recognized
for just being super clean, nota lot of bite, and I think
that's because we give it fourdays to filter, so not a lot of
bite.
We give it four days to filter,so not a lot of bite, a little
bit of minerality on that at theend.
So we're very, very proud ofthe vodka.
I will tell you it's not everyday that you probably drink
(02:10):
vodka.
Neat, I do.
It's my job, though right LikeI have to.
So I've done kind ofside-by-side tastings with other
vodkas that are on the marketand again, I think ours competes
very, very well in terms ofcrispness and clean and really
it's that bite that's not thereat the end, that I think kind of
what defines it.
That is our vodka.
Very, very excited and proudabout that one when are you
(02:31):
distilling from?
So this is 100% corn that westart with.
So same for the vodka and allthe gins.
It's all corn based, 100% cornand gluten-free.
Sometimes that question comesup, but in our distillation
process all gluten is removed.
The only time there's gluten inspirits is if they add it after
they distill it.
If they're going to add somekind of flavoring that could
have gluten in it, but we getthat question pretty often, but
(02:53):
we don't add any flavoring afterthe fact.
Any other questions on vodka?
There's a little bit ofsweetness to it, yeah, and so it
is corn-based.
So, even though we'redistilling most of that out, if
you get any kind of sweetness,that's going to be because it is
100% corn-based and you knowvodka.
You can make liquor fromanything.
It's just a matter ofefficiency, right, like if I
threw broccoli in there, wecould get alcohol eventually.
(03:13):
It just would take a long timeand take a lot of broccoli, and
so we use corn because it'ssuper efficient in making
ethanol alcohol.
All right, so we're going tomove on to gin, next Gin we're
probably the most proud of, andI was the most excited to even
make a gin, more so than evenbourbon or whiskey.
We did seven different trials tocome up with this gin.
I made a recipe, my wife made arecipe, my brother-in-law, who
(03:37):
just happened to be in town thatweekend.
He got to make a recipe.
He was excited.
And then a very smart guy thatI keep on retainer, he runs a
consulting company, his I did.
And then a very smart guy thatI keep on retainer, he runs a
consulting company, his name'sSteve, and he did four of the
recipes for us.
We distilled them all at smallbatch, like less than a gallon
each, and then for gin we likeit to rest for at least a month
after we distill it.
So we let all seven of thoserest.
Then we did a blind taste test.
(03:58):
Out of those seven we pickedthe top three on just an
arbitrary scoring system andthat was drinking them neat.
So we took the top three afterdrinking them neat and then I
made three cocktails out of eachof them.
So if you're doing the math,yes it was a nine cocktail day,
but someone had to do the work.
It was a tough day at theoffice, but we took those three,
we made a gin and tonic out ofit, we made a Negroni and we
(04:20):
made a Tom Collins and if youknow anything about cocktails,
that just represents a reallybroad kind of spectrum of
flavors that could be in a gincocktail.
So we tasted them and againscored them.
After all three of the cocktailsthere was a clear winner after
drinking it.
Neat, it was the same clearwinner after the cocktails.
I wish I could say it was myrecipe, but it wasn't.
I came in second Second's,pretty good.
(04:40):
Whose was it?
It was actually one of myconsultants and if you think
about it he had four, so the adswere in his favor to win.
But it was actually his wife'sgrandmother's old recipe.
So he was super excited that wepicked that one as our winner
because he'd only ever made itat small batch and so when we
made it last year in our 250gallons still, it was the first
time he got to do it kind of atscale and so he was excited and
(05:03):
he had.
He had tweaked the ratios ofthose ingredients over the years
but it was the same ingredientlist that I guess his wife's
grandmother family used to make.
So that was very cool for us.
The defining characteristic ofgin is that it must be
predominantly juniper.
Juniper is that botanical thatcan sometimes make it taste like
a Christmas tree.
Well, for Amy and I, when wewere doing our research, we
(05:25):
didn't want it to taste like youwere taking a bite of a
Christmas tree.
We wanted to kind of minimizethe juniper as much as we could,
and so that's what we did withthis recipe.
We call it citrus forward,there's orange peel, lemon peel,
lemon verbena in there.
We call it citrus forward,there's orange peel, lemon peel,
lemon verbena in there.
But it's rounded out, I think,at the end with some elderberry
and some clove, actually for alittle spiciness.
And so same thing when yousmell this one, try to do it
(05:46):
with your mouth open, and on thenose you are going to get some
of that juniper because it isthe predominant botanical that's
present.
So on the nose, juniper willcome through.
When you take that first smallsip.
That'll prepare your palate toswitch over to gin.
And before I forget, I'll alsopoint out, also a gold medal
winner.
We won gold on our gin at theNew York International Spirit
(06:08):
Comp, which is againinternational, against all the
large distilleries.
So on that second sip yourpalate's a little bit more
prepared to taste what might bethere.
So you should probably pick upon some of that citrus and even
some people can pick out theclove, kind of at the tail end
of tasting it.
It's delicious.
Yeah, we're very proud of it.
It's done well, it's been wellreceived.
(06:29):
And we hear, at the barespecially, a lot of people come
and say you know, I don't likegin.
I haven't had gin since I was ateenager and I said, ah, you
had a ginsident, didn't you?
You did.
And so what we like to do isintroduce them to our gin and
you drink it neat.
Again, that's not common to dowith gin.
We like to put it in a reallygood cocktail.
That's what's great about gin.
(06:49):
It balances really well.
And so what we do here atHidden Ships for those that had
ginsidence we have ginerventionsand we reintroduce them to gin,
and we've done that prettysuccessfully, with a lot of
people that come back and sayyou know, I never liked gin, but
now I really like your gin.
So again, we're very proud ofit.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
When I came here, I bought a bottle of this because
I do like gin.
Yeah, you know I'm a Tanquerayguy.
This is one of the rare ones,though, that if I make a gin and
tonic, normally you know you'lladd lime or a twist or
something to it, and this gindoes not need that.
Oh, okay, I have found thatwhatever's in it whether it's
the lemon or the otherbotanicals makes that completely
(07:28):
unnecessary, in fact it becomesoverkill and I really have to
admit I really it's one of themost.
I think the way I phrased it tomy wife was it's the most
interesting gin I've ever had.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Well, that's good In a good way.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, in a good way, that'sgreat feedback.
Thank you, in a good way, verymuch so.
So we're going to move on to ourbarrel-rested gin.
This is the same ingredients,the same botan.
I mentioned before that for allof our gin we let it sit for at
least a month, and the reasonwe do that is we want all those
(08:01):
botanicals to kind of meld andbecome a single flavor profile.
For this one, what we did waswe let it rest clear for three
full months, so it was reallywell blended.
And then for another threemonths we rested it on oak
spirals, and so when you tasteit and when you smell it, you're
going to get a little bit ofthat oak.
What I think is really funabout it is you know it's our
(08:22):
gin and then really I get it atthe end there's just something
special that comes, I think,from the oakiness, and so we're
really proud of this.
It just launched, actually July4th, so it's only been out a
couple of months now, and again,I think it's been well received
.
So you know it's our gin whenyou smell it and taste it, but
then you get something a littleextra special, so go ahead and
(08:44):
smell whenever you're ready,again with your mouth open, if
you can.
So this one, because it's a newproduct.
We didn't have it available toenter in some of the previous
competitions that we've donewell in.
There's one competition thatwe're pending the results on.
It'll be the first one that hasour barrel-rested rum and gin.
Those results should be outreally by the end of this month,
(09:04):
and so I'm excited to see howit did in a competition setting.
I think it should do very, verywell.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Definitely a difference between the two,
though.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah for sure, very, very well.
Definitely a difference betweenthe two though.
Yeah for sure, just addsomething to it.
But you know it's our gin.
When we put it on the menu wehave it on as a Gin Ricky, which
is kind of a spin on a TomCollins, but it does very, very
well in that drink.
And then an old Cuban drink,which is very fun.
And so, yeah, those have bothdone very, very well for us All.
(09:33):
Right, we're going to move onto rum.
We're going to switch it up abit and I will take these.
This is our unaged white rum.
I mentioned all the trials wedid with gin when it came time
to do rum.
We ran out of time last year soI didn't have time for a lot of
trials.
I asked my consultant, steve.
I said what's a good recipe?
He said let's go 50% molasses,50% golden sugar.
I said let's go 50% molasses,50% golden sugar.
(09:53):
I said perfect, we're out oftime, let's do it.
And I guess there is somedifferent philosophical thoughts
on what that ratio should be60-40, 70-30.
So we're straight 50-50 withour molasses and golden sugar.
So when you smell this, whatmost people get on the nose is a
butter or a butteriness, so youcan go ahead and smell that.
That's what comes through formost people.
(10:14):
Other people's again.
Everyone's kind of nose andpalate is a little bit different
, but most people get butter.
They even start thinkingpopcorn because of the butter,
butterscotch Absolutely Samething on the palate.
When you taste it, go ahead andwhenever you're ready, that's
what comes through.
Predominantly is a smooth,buttery butter rum sometimes.
Or some people even sayWerther's Original, but it's all
kind of associated with thatbutteriness and that just comes
(10:38):
from the molasses and sugar thatwe use.
All right, so now we're goingto move on to our barrel-rested
rum, and this one I'm really,really excited about Again just
came out July 4th, so a couplemonths old.
What we did with this one is itstarted the same as the rum that
you just tasted.
So it's the same recipe, samerum wash.
But after it comes off thestill, we actually put it into
what was a bourbon barrel.
So when we dump our bourbon,the barrel's empty.
(11:04):
Then we fill it with the rum,and so you're going to get some
of that vanilla, some of thesweetness from the barrel, a
little bit of oakiness perhaps.
But then we also added a woodspiral and the wood is called
Ambarana wood.
It's a South American hardwoodand it gives it kind of a
Caribbean.
I get banana notes off of thatand that all comes from the
Ambarana.
I had done some experiments withjust white rum and Ambarana and
(11:26):
rested it and that tasteddelicious.
I did not do trials to see howthe bourbon barrel with the
Ambarana was going to do, wejust went for it.
We did four whole barrels and Isaid I hope it turns out good.
We waited seven months and Ithink it turned out very, very
good when we tasted it.
So again, same as our rum.
So you're still going to getsome of that butteriness that
comes through.
But I think you'll pick up onsome Caribbean notes from that
(11:50):
Ambarana.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You can tell from the color.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah.
So just on some Caribbean notesfrom that Ambarana you can tell
from the color yeah, so it'snot going to be as dark as a
bourbon because bourbon takesyears and years and years to sit
in a barrel.
This only had seven months, soit's got a little bit of that
color.
I love the smell.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, me too, I agree .
Oh, this is really nice, it'sreally delicious.
This is really nice, that one'sreally good yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Really good.
Yeah, so this one also.
Again, we're pending results inour competition.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Any coconut in any of those.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So there's no coconut but, that kind of flavor would
come from that Ambarana one.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, is that what it's from?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yep for sure.
I think it's going to do verywell in a competition setting.
It's been doing well in saleshere.
We actually featured it when weput it on the menu.
Of course our old-fashionedwith our bourbon is our number
one selling cocktail.
But we added this to the menuas a rum old-fashioned and I
thought that was a cool spin onit because it sat in a bourbon
barrel.
The cocktail is going to be alittle sweeter than a
traditional old-fashioned butit's been very well received.
(12:41):
The rum old-fashioned, I thinkbecause it rested in a bourbon
barrel it gets just a little bitof that.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So very proud of that one.
I almost hate to lose the tasteby mixing it.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, I think that one could be put on ice, or some
people like they drink bourbon.
They drink it neat.
I think that one has thepotential to do that, all right.
So we saved the bourbon forlast.
It's usually a crowd favorite.
Now, bourbon is an age spirit.
As I said, it takes years andyears to sit in a barrel.
I wasn't open years and yearsand years ago.
(13:11):
We're coming up on our one-yearanniversary in a couple of
weeks here.
At the end of September, when Iwas building the business model
and wanted to open this place, Imade a decision that I wanted
bourbon day one, and so thatmeant that initially, I'd be
sourcing bourbon from somewhereelse.
Sourcing in the distillingindustry is incredibly common,
more so than, say, breweries orwineries, although they do
(13:32):
source a little bit.
But in distilling, even the bigdistillers will source from
each other when they need to.
In fact, four Roses, who I'msure you've heard of, started
because they went to RosesDistillery and picked four
barrels, so they called it FourRoses.
Right, and that was sourcing.
And so we made a decision tosource because I wanted bourbon
day one.
We partnered with a companycalled Southern Distilling up in
Statesville, north Carolina.
(13:52):
That was really important to us, because all that corn that
went into this bourbon is grownwithin 20 miles of that
distillery, so it's NorthCarolina grown corn.
The reality is I could havesaved a lot of money buying
bourbon from somewhere else, butthat's just not the story we
wanted to tell.
So we wanted that NorthCarolina connection, so we
sourced from them.
I went up there, did tastingson everything they had the mash
(14:14):
bill.
Mash bill just means recipe.
So the recipe and mash bill forthis is 78% corn, so there's
going to be a sweetness to it.
From all that corn.
It's 14% rye, so it's actuallya mild rye bourbon and then 8%
malted barley.
What we do with it after wereceive it is we take it through
what's called a secondary agingfor two months here on site.
(14:34):
And when we were experimentingwith this before we opened, we
did five different trials.
We rested it on five differentpieces of wood to see which one
we wanted to go with, and werested those for two months.
And so we rested it on a cherrywood, a mulberry, which is a
fruit tree, we did a port, wedid a sherry and we did a French
oak, rested them for two months, did another blind taste test,
(14:58):
arbitrary scoring system.
We picked the two front runnersthis time.
We didn't know at the time, butthe front runners were the
sherry and the French oak.
So then I took those two and Imade an old fashioned out of it,
actually, because for me wewanted to make great spirits for
sure, but it was also how is itgoing to be in a cocktail?
How is it going to hold up?
So we always put it up to thattest, made the old fashioned out
of both of those, and what wefound was that there was just
(15:21):
something special about the drysherry mixing with the sugars of
a cocktail.
That just made it special,whereas the French oak made the
base bourbon a little sweeteralready, and so now we're adding
sugar to sweetness and it was alittle too much in the cocktail
.
So we slapped the table.
We said the sherry is whatwe're doing and that's what we
still do today.
I just received eight barrelslast week that will represent
(15:43):
batch five of our bourbon, andeach of those 53-gallon barrels
gets another wood spiral.
This time it's oak spirals thatwe soak in that dry sherry for
about 10 days, two weeks.
So you end up with a sherryfinish Very similar to what,
like an Angel's Envy, does withtheir port finishes and their
rum cast finishes.
And we did that just to make itunique Again because I knew I'd
(16:04):
be sourcing initially we wantedto put our own fingerprint on
it.
We think the base bourbon was agreat foundation to build on.
They make a great bourbon upthere at Southern and again we
just wanted to make it unique.
So go ahead and definitely smellthis one.
First, take a small sip whenyou're ready, just because now
we're switching from run tobourbon.
Take a small sip when you'reready, just because now we're
switching from run to bourbon.
And that second sip shouldprepare you to get some of that
(16:28):
flavor profile a sweetness,vanilla characteristics, some
oakiness.
Perhaps A lot of people can'teven pick out that it is a rye
because it was already a mildrye, it only being 14% of the
recipe, and I think oursecondary aging with the sherry
kind of mutes the rye even moreRye.
Typically, if you ever have arye, bourbon is kind of
(16:48):
characterized by a spiciness,pepperiness, but I think ours is
muted a little bit with thatsherry and it's been
well-received.
We've had very flatteringlocals that will come in and say
I did a blind taste test and wepicked this out of a lineup
against you know whomever, someof the big names.
So I don't know if it's true ornot, but it's flattering, it's
nice to hear.
Any questions on anything?
We just tasted Well, great.
(17:10):
Thanks again for being here.
I really do appreciate it andwe're open now, so stay for a
cocktail.
All right, take it away, andy, okay well welcome
everyone.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
I appreciate you being here.
We're going to go throughtasting.
We're going to have some fun.
Today we have all six spiritsthat we make here at Hidden
Ships Distillery.
You don't have to do all six.
You're welcome to do all six.
If you do, we call it a grandslam, but there's no pressure at
all.
I'm going to take you throughtasting notes on each.
We're going to start with Vodka.
Vodka which, I'll point out,just won a gold medal at USA
Spirit Ratings.
That's an internationalcompetition, so we're very proud
(00:27):
of that.
Vodka is kind of interesting.
I'll tell you, as a distiller,I wasn't super excited
necessarily to make it, becauseby definition, it's tasteless
and odorless, right Like that'swhat defines vodka.
So it's a little hard to getexcited about that.
I will tell you now, though.
I'm very proud of our vodka,not so much on how we distill it
but how we filter it.
We actually spend four daysletting this trickle through
(00:48):
this coconut carbon filtrationsystem, and I think, because we
give it that time, it reallytakes the bite off of it, and I
think it competes well.
So for this tastings, I want youto always smell them first, if
you just bring them up to yournose and here I'll hand you that
.
And when you smell them, what Iwant you to do is actually try
to keep your mouth open if youcan.
It's a hard skill, but Ibelieve in you.
I know you can do it.
(01:08):
And the reason you're doingthat is so that it kind of
dissipates some of the ethanolalcohol that would just
otherwise overwhelm the nose.
So go ahead and bring it up toyour nose.
You're going to give it thatsmell with that mouth open first
, and now again tasteless andodorless.
You shouldn't smell a whole lotwith vodka.
You just kind of just smelllike the ethanol.
It smells like maybe evenrubbing alcohol a little bit, so
(01:29):
you're not going to get verymuch on the nose.
When we do these tastings, Ialways want you to take a small
sip first.
So go ahead and take a smallsip whenever you're ready, and
all that's doing is getting yourpalate ready to receive some of
the flavors.
So with that small sip, yoursecond sip can then be a little
bit bigger.
You don't have to finish it,but you can, if you want to, and
now you're going to get some ofthe flavors that may be in
there.
(01:49):
Now again, taste this inodorless by definition, so we
don't want a lot in there.
Actually, at the awardscompetition it was recognized
for just being super clean, nota lot of bite, and I think
that's because we give it fourdays to filter, so not a lot of
bite.
We give it four days to filter,so not a lot of bite, a little
bit of minerality on that at theend.
So we're very, very proud ofthe vodka.
I will tell you it's not everyday that you probably drink
(02:10):
vodka.
Neat, I do.
It's my job, though right LikeI have to.
So I've done kind ofside-by-side tastings with other
vodkas that are on the marketand again, I think ours competes
very, very well in terms ofcrispness and clean and really
it's that bite that's not thereat the end, that I think kind of
what defines it.
That is our vodka.
Very, very excited and proudabout that one when are you
(02:31):
distilling from?
So this is 100% corn that westart with.
So same for the vodka and allthe gins.
It's all corn based, 100% cornand gluten-free.
Sometimes that question comesup, but in our distillation
process all gluten is removed.
The only time there's gluten inspirits is if they add it after
they distill it.
If they're going to add somekind of flavoring that could
have gluten in it, but we getthat question pretty often, but
(02:53):
we don't add any flavoring afterthe fact.
Any other questions on vodka?
There's a little bit ofsweetness to it, yeah, and so it
is corn-based.
So, even though we'redistilling most of that out, if
you get any kind of sweetness,that's going to be because it is
100% corn-based and you knowvodka.
You can make liquor fromanything.
It's just a matter ofefficiency, right, like if I
threw broccoli in there, wecould get alcohol eventually.
(03:13):
It just would take a long timeand take a lot of broccoli, and
so we use corn because it'ssuper efficient in making
ethanol alcohol.
All right, so we're going tomove on to gin, next Gin we're
probably the most proud of, andI was the most excited to even
make a gin, more so than evenbourbon or whiskey.
We did seven different trials tocome up with this gin.
I made a recipe, my wife made arecipe, my brother-in-law, who
(03:37):
just happened to be in town thatweekend.
He got to make a recipe.
He was excited.
And then a very smart guy thatI keep on retainer, he runs a
consulting company, his I did.
And then a very smart guy thatI keep on retainer, he runs a
consulting company, his name'sSteve, and he did four of the
recipes for us.
We distilled them all at smallbatch, like less than a gallon
each, and then for gin we likeit to rest for at least a month
after we distill it.
So we let all seven of thoserest.
Then we did a blind taste test.
(03:58):
Out of those seven we pickedthe top three on just an
arbitrary scoring system andthat was drinking them neat.
So we took the top three afterdrinking them neat and then I
made three cocktails out of eachof them.
So if you're doing the math,yes it was a nine cocktail day,
but someone had to do the work.
It was a tough day at theoffice, but we took those three,
we made a gin and tonic out ofit, we made a Negroni and we
(04:20):
made a Tom Collins and if youknow anything about cocktails,
that just represents a reallybroad kind of spectrum of
flavors that could be in a gincocktail.
So we tasted them and againscored them.
After all three of the cocktailsthere was a clear winner after
drinking it.
Neat, it was the same clearwinner after the cocktails.
I wish I could say it was myrecipe, but it wasn't.
I came in second Second's,pretty good.
(04:40):
Whose was it?
It was actually one of myconsultants and if you think
about it he had four, so the adswere in his favor to win.
But it was actually his wife'sgrandmother's old recipe.
So he was super excited that wepicked that one as our winner
because he'd only ever made itat small batch and so when we
made it last year in our 250gallons still, it was the first
time he got to do it kind of atscale and so he was excited and
(05:03):
he had.
He had tweaked the ratios ofthose ingredients over the years
but it was the same ingredientlist that I guess his wife's
grandmother family used to make.
So that was very cool for us.
The defining characteristic ofgin is that it must be
predominantly juniper.
Juniper is that botanical thatcan sometimes make it taste like
a Christmas tree.
Well, for Amy and I, when wewere doing our research, we
(05:25):
didn't want it to taste like youwere taking a bite of a
Christmas tree.
We wanted to kind of minimizethe juniper as much as we could,
and so that's what we did withthis recipe.
We call it citrus forward,there's orange peel, lemon peel,
lemon verbena in there.
We call it citrus forward,there's orange peel, lemon peel,
lemon verbena in there.
But it's rounded out, I think,at the end with some elderberry
and some clove, actually for alittle spiciness.
And so same thing when yousmell this one, try to do it
(05:46):
with your mouth open, and on thenose you are going to get some
of that juniper because it isthe predominant botanical that's
present.
So on the nose, juniper willcome through.
When you take that first smallsip.
That'll prepare your palate toswitch over to gin.
And before I forget, I'll alsopoint out, also a gold medal
winner.
We won gold on our gin at theNew York International Spirit
(06:08):
Comp, which is againinternational, against all the
large distilleries.
So on that second sip yourpalate's a little bit more
prepared to taste what might bethere.
So you should probably pick upon some of that citrus and even
some people can pick out theclove, kind of at the tail end
of tasting it.
It's delicious.
Yeah, we're very proud of it.
It's done well, it's been wellreceived.
(06:29):
And we hear, at the barespecially, a lot of people come
and say you know, I don't likegin.
I haven't had gin since I was ateenager and I said, ah, you
had a ginsident, didn't you?
You did.
And so what we like to do isintroduce them to our gin and
you drink it neat.
Again, that's not common to dowith gin.
We like to put it in a reallygood cocktail.
That's what's great about gin.
(06:49):
It balances really well.
And so what we do here atHidden Ships for those that had
ginsidence we have ginerventionsand we reintroduce them to gin,
and we've done that prettysuccessfully, with a lot of
people that come back and sayyou know, I never liked gin, but
now I really like your gin.
So again, we're very proud ofit.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
When I came here, I bought a bottle of this because
I do like gin.
Yeah, you know I'm a Tanquerayguy.
This is one of the rare ones,though, that if I make a gin and
tonic, normally you know you'lladd lime or a twist or
something to it, and this gindoes not need that.
Oh, okay, I have found thatwhatever's in it whether it's
the lemon or the otherbotanicals makes that completely
(07:28):
unnecessary, in fact it becomesoverkill and I really have to
admit I really it's one of themost.
I think the way I phrased it tomy wife was it's the most
interesting gin I've ever had.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Well, that's good In a good way.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, in a good way, that'sgreat feedback.
Thank you, in a good way, verymuch so.
So we're going to move on to ourbarrel-rested gin.
This is the same ingredients,the same botan.
I mentioned before that for allof our gin we let it sit for at
least a month, and the reasonwe do that is we want all those
(08:01):
botanicals to kind of meld andbecome a single flavor profile.
For this one, what we did waswe let it rest clear for three
full months, so it was reallywell blended.
And then for another threemonths we rested it on oak
spirals, and so when you tasteit and when you smell it, you're
going to get a little bit ofthat oak.
What I think is really funabout it is you know it's our
(08:22):
gin and then really I get it atthe end there's just something
special that comes, I think,from the oakiness, and so we're
really proud of this.
It just launched, actually July4th, so it's only been out a
couple of months now, and again,I think it's been well received
.
So you know it's our gin whenyou smell it and taste it, but
then you get something a littleextra special, so go ahead and
(08:44):
smell whenever you're ready,again with your mouth open, if
you can.
So this one, because it's a newproduct.
We didn't have it available toenter in some of the previous
competitions that we've donewell in.
There's one competition thatwe're pending the results on.
It'll be the first one that hasour barrel-rested rum and gin.
Those results should be outreally by the end of this month,
(09:04):
and so I'm excited to see howit did in a competition setting.
I think it should do very, verywell.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Definitely a difference between the two,
though.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah for sure, very, very well.
Definitely a difference betweenthe two though.
Yeah for sure, just addsomething to it.
But you know it's our gin.
When we put it on the menu wehave it on as a Gin Ricky, which
is kind of a spin on a TomCollins, but it does very, very
well in that drink.
And then an old Cuban drink,which is very fun.
And so, yeah, those have bothdone very, very well for us All.
(09:33):
Right, we're going to move onto rum.
We're going to switch it up abit and I will take these.
This is our unaged white rum.
I mentioned all the trials wedid with gin when it came time
to do rum.
We ran out of time last year soI didn't have time for a lot of
trials.
I asked my consultant, steve.
I said what's a good recipe?
He said let's go 50% molasses,50% golden sugar.
I said let's go 50% molasses,50% golden sugar.
(09:53):
I said perfect, we're out oftime, let's do it.
And I guess there is somedifferent philosophical thoughts
on what that ratio should be60-40, 70-30.
So we're straight 50-50 withour molasses and golden sugar.
So when you smell this, whatmost people get on the nose is a
butter or a butteriness, so youcan go ahead and smell that.
That's what comes through formost people.
(10:14):
Other people's again.
Everyone's kind of nose andpalate is a little bit different
, but most people get butter.
They even start thinkingpopcorn because of the butter,
butterscotch Absolutely Samething on the palate.
When you taste it, go ahead andwhenever you're ready, that's
what comes through.
Predominantly is a smooth,buttery butter rum sometimes.
Or some people even sayWerther's Original, but it's all
kind of associated with thatbutteriness and that just comes
(10:38):
from the molasses and sugar thatwe use.
All right, so now we're goingto move on to our barrel-rested
rum, and this one I'm really,really excited about Again just
came out July 4th, so a couplemonths old.
What we did with this one is itstarted the same as the rum that
you just tasted.
So it's the same recipe, samerum wash.
But after it comes off thestill, we actually put it into
what was a bourbon barrel.
So when we dump our bourbon,the barrel's empty.
(11:04):
Then we fill it with the rum,and so you're going to get some
of that vanilla, some of thesweetness from the barrel, a
little bit of oakiness perhaps.
But then we also added a woodspiral and the wood is called
Ambarana wood.
It's a South American hardwoodand it gives it kind of a
Caribbean.
I get banana notes off of thatand that all comes from the
Ambarana.
I had done some experiments withjust white rum and Ambarana and
(11:26):
rested it and that tasteddelicious.
I did not do trials to see howthe bourbon barrel with the
Ambarana was going to do, wejust went for it.
We did four whole barrels and Isaid I hope it turns out good.
We waited seven months and Ithink it turned out very, very
good when we tasted it.
So again, same as our rum.
So you're still going to getsome of that butteriness that
comes through.
But I think you'll pick up onsome Caribbean notes from that
(11:50):
Ambarana.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
You can tell from the color.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Yeah.
So just on some Caribbean notesfrom that Ambarana you can tell
from the color yeah, so it'snot going to be as dark as a
bourbon because bourbon takesyears and years and years to sit
in a barrel.
This only had seven months, soit's got a little bit of that
color.
I love the smell.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Yeah, me too, I agree .
Oh, this is really nice, it'sreally delicious.
This is really nice, that one'sreally good yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Really good.
Yeah, so this one also.
Again, we're pending results inour competition.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Any coconut in any of those.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
So there's no coconut but, that kind of flavor would
come from that Ambarana one.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yeah, is that what it's from?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yep for sure.
I think it's going to do verywell in a competition setting.
It's been doing well in saleshere.
We actually featured it when weput it on the menu.
Of course our old-fashionedwith our bourbon is our number
one selling cocktail.
But we added this to the menuas a rum old-fashioned and I
thought that was a cool spin onit because it sat in a bourbon
barrel.
The cocktail is going to be alittle sweeter than a
traditional old-fashioned butit's been very well received.
(12:41):
The rum old-fashioned, I thinkbecause it rested in a bourbon
barrel it gets just a little bitof that.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
So very proud of that one.
I almost hate to lose the tasteby mixing it.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Yeah, I think that one could be put on ice, or some
people like they drink bourbon.
They drink it neat.
I think that one has thepotential to do that, all right.
So we saved the bourbon forlast.
It's usually a crowd favorite.
Now, bourbon is an age spirit.
As I said, it takes years andyears to sit in a barrel.
I wasn't open years and yearsand years ago.
(13:11):
We're coming up on our one-yearanniversary in a couple of
weeks here.
At the end of September, when Iwas building the business model
and wanted to open this place, Imade a decision that I wanted
bourbon day one, and so thatmeant that initially, I'd be
sourcing bourbon from somewhereelse.
Sourcing in the distillingindustry is incredibly common,
more so than, say, breweries orwineries, although they do
(13:32):
source a little bit.
But in distilling, even the bigdistillers will source from
each other when they need to.
In fact, four Roses, who I'msure you've heard of, started
because they went to RosesDistillery and picked four
barrels, so they called it FourRoses.
Right, and that was sourcing.
And so we made a decision tosource because I wanted bourbon
day one.
We partnered with a companycalled Southern Distilling up in
Statesville, north Carolina.
(13:52):
That was really important to us, because all that corn that
went into this bourbon is grownwithin 20 miles of that
distillery, so it's NorthCarolina grown corn.
The reality is I could havesaved a lot of money buying
bourbon from somewhere else, butthat's just not the story we
wanted to tell.
So we wanted that NorthCarolina connection, so we
sourced from them.
I went up there, did tastingson everything they had the mash
(14:14):
bill.
Mash bill just means recipe.
So the recipe and mash bill forthis is 78% corn, so there's
going to be a sweetness to it.
From all that corn.
It's 14% rye, so it's actuallya mild rye bourbon and then 8%
malted barley.
What we do with it after wereceive it is we take it through
what's called a secondary agingfor two months here on site.
(14:34):
And when we were experimentingwith this before we opened, we
did five different trials.
We rested it on five differentpieces of wood to see which one
we wanted to go with, and werested those for two months.
And so we rested it on a cherrywood, a mulberry, which is a
fruit tree, we did a port, wedid a sherry and we did a French
oak, rested them for two months, did another blind taste test,
(14:58):
arbitrary scoring system.
We picked the two front runnersthis time.
We didn't know at the time, butthe front runners were the
sherry and the French oak.
So then I took those two and Imade an old fashioned out of it,
actually, because for me wewanted to make great spirits for
sure, but it was also how is itgoing to be in a cocktail?
How is it going to hold up?
So we always put it up to thattest, made the old fashioned out
of both of those, and what wefound was that there was just
(15:21):
something special about the drysherry mixing with the sugars of
a cocktail.
That just made it special,whereas the French oak made the
base bourbon a little sweeteralready, and so now we're adding
sugar to sweetness and it was alittle too much in the cocktail
.
So we slapped the table.
We said the sherry is whatwe're doing and that's what we
still do today.
I just received eight barrelslast week that will represent
(15:43):
batch five of our bourbon, andeach of those 53-gallon barrels
gets another wood spiral.
This time it's oak spirals thatwe soak in that dry sherry for
about 10 days, two weeks.
So you end up with a sherryfinish Very similar to what,
like an Angel's Envy, does withtheir port finishes and their
rum cast finishes.
And we did that just to make itunique Again because I knew I'd
(16:04):
be sourcing initially we wantedto put our own fingerprint on
it.
We think the base bourbon was agreat foundation to build on.
They make a great bourbon upthere at Southern and again we
just wanted to make it unique.
So go ahead and definitely smellthis one.
First, take a small sip whenyou're ready, just because now
we're switching from run tobourbon.
Take a small sip when you'reready, just because now we're
switching from run to bourbon.
And that second sip shouldprepare you to get some of that
(16:28):
flavor profile a sweetness,vanilla characteristics, some
oakiness.
Perhaps A lot of people can'teven pick out that it is a rye
because it was already a mildrye, it only being 14% of the
recipe, and I think oursecondary aging with the sherry
kind of mutes the rye even moreRye.
Typically, if you ever have arye, bourbon is kind of
(16:48):
characterized by a spiciness,pepperiness, but I think ours is
muted a little bit with thatsherry and it's been
well-received.
We've had very flatteringlocals that will come in and say
I did a blind taste test and wepicked this out of a lineup
against you know whomever, someof the big names.
So I don't know if it's true ornot, but it's flattering, it's
nice to hear.
Any questions on anything?
We just tasted Well, great.
(17:10):
Thanks again for being here.
I really do appreciate it andwe're open now, so stay for a
cocktail.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.