Some of the best liquor poured in the Bay area is produced here as well. And now cocktail connoisseurs can watch the magic being made, and then sample it on site, at the St. George Spirits’ distillery in Alameda.
By Camper English
Published: September, 2006
Some of the best liquor poured in the Bay area is produced here as well. And now cocktail connoisseurs can watch the magic being made, and then sample it on site, at the St. George Spirits’ distillery in Alameda.
The scenic way to get to the distillery is by taking the Oakland/Alameda Ferry from the San Francisco Ferry Building or Jack London Square in Oakland. The ride is 20 minutes from San Francisco, and the distillery is only about a half-mile from the dock in Alameda. The 63 AC Transit bus will take you from dock to the distillery door, or it’s a short (but not particularly pretty) walk from the boat. As bicycles are permitted on the ferry, you can always make a two-wheeled tour out of the visit, as long as you are careful to avoid drinking and pedaling afterward.
Though the tasting room (located in a hangar in the old Alameda Naval Air Station) has been open for awhile now, just this August the company began leading distillery tours. Tastings are Wednesdays through Sundays, and the distillery tour is offered once-a-week on Saturday afternoons. These are timed so that visitors may take the 11:50AM ferry from San Francisco and get there in plenty of time for the tour.
During the half-hour tour, visitors walk through the distillery and learn how distilling works as they get up-close to the pot stills and see the bottling process.
After whetting one’s appetite in the walk-through, it is time to sample the wares. The full tasting costs $10 for 11 different spirits, and the tasting glass is yours to keep.
St. George Spirits is the parent company for the various products produced on site, which go by a few different brand names. The tasting begins with the Agua Perfecta brand of eau de vie; the first product produced by St. George Spirits. Eau de vie is an un-aged distillate made from any fruit, typically served as a digestif. The two eau de vie flavors offered for sampling are the pear (with fruit from Lake County, Sonoma, and Ukiah), and the frambois (better known as raspberry, with fruit from Oregon).
Next in the tasting is the range of vodkas produced under the Hangar One brand.
The full range of these high-end vodkas can be found at many better bars and restaurants in the Bay area, as well as across the nation. The straight vodka is actually a blend of pot-distilled vodka made from Viognier wine and column distilled wheat vodka. The wine vodka gives the resulting mixture a smooth and creamy texture free of the usual harsh liquor burn.
Hangar One’s fruit-infused line of vodkas are some of the very best flavored vodkas in the world, made not by adding artificial flavors to distilled vodka, but by actually soaking the fruit in vodka, and then redistilling it.
In the tasting room visitors sample the Buddha’s Hand citron, kaffir lime and Mandarin Blossom flavors. As they are constantly experimenting with other flavors at Hangar One, sometimes guests may taste limited edition bottles like Fraser River raspberry and wasabi infusions.
Next up in the tasting is the St. George single malt whiskey that starts as an ale, is distilled in small batches and stored in oak casks that once held bourbon. And after that, the Qi brand tea liqueur, which has a fantastic, smoky aroma and taste, quite unlike the sweet fruit liqueurs most people are used to.
Speaking of fruit liqueurs, the sampling ends with two of them. The raspberry and pear Aqua Perfecta liqueurs are made by combining the eau de vie (sampled first) with additional fruit, which gives it a lower concentration of alcohol and added sweetness.
The return trip to the ferry after the tasting is both nicer and harder than the trip to it: nicer because the buzz puts an easy glide into one’s stride, and harder because visitors are likely to leave weighed down with a few newly purchased bottles with which to replicate the tasting room experience at home.
St. George Spirits
2601 Monarch St., Alameda
(510) 769-1601
www.stgeorgespirits.com
