A couple weeks back I took a ferry from San Francisco across the bay to Alameda Island, a strange sort of twilight zone spot with suburban comfort one one end and naked industrial flatlands on the other. There, In the giant airplane hangar that St. George Spirits calls home, some magical things are made: the ingeniously infused Hangar One Vodkas, St. George's Absinthe, the fine St. George Single Malt and their luminous Pear Aqua Perfecta.
As luck would have it my visit coincided with the arrival of a batch of pears picked from naturalist John Muir's farm in Marin County. The guys at St. George had been asked to create a very small batch of eau de vie from the heirloom pears for special gifts for some heavy-duty benefactors of the Muir Heritage Land Trust. As swag goes, a bottle of pear eau de vie made from pears grown in the orchard of the man who inspired an whole movement of enviromentalism and preservation of wildlands is hard to beat.
St. George's Lance Winters and Lou Bussamante discussed the approach to distilling the pears that hadn't been picked by their guys, but by volunteers from the Foundation, and were of varying ripeness. Lance talked about what an honor it was to be asked to bottle these special pears, and it was in fact a striking affirmation. Good day to visit.
The place has an air of serious play and experimentation in the hangar, and the guys seem be as committed to the art and craft of making these 'why not?' spirits as enjoying them. When I noticed a brand new set of giant JBL speakers in the middle of the vast room I asked Lou if they ever had parties there. "We've got a giant shark in the middle of the room and this is a distillery--we have some pretty amazing parties." But the mad scientist vibe is really what's notable- -Lance told me about their attempts to distill some unlikeley things, like his white whale of eau de vie-ism--Apparently the stuff is so tough that Lance and crew broke a chainsaw, a buzzsaw and a woodchipper in their attempt to break it up enough to run a trial batches. It sounds like they do a lot of trial batches, including one of Lance's christmas trees and the sounds scary/tastes amazing foie gra brandy. Anthony Bourdain and his No Reservations crew had stopped in while
filming a San Francisco segment and tried their absinthe (not
impressed) and got to try an early iteration of the foie gras eau de
vie (very impressed) in a segment that didn't make the show but is
online at travelchannel.com.
Lance spoke admiringly of other craft distillers on the West Coast like House Spirits and Clear Creek Distillery, both in Portland. When I visited those outfits later in the month they expressed similar admiration all around. There seems to be a genuine camaraderie among these teams that are sort of reinventing the American spirit game with a great combination unfettered experimention and impressive technical savvy. All these distillers were inspiring in their own way. But it must be said that the St. George Boys have it all over everyone else in terms of location and workspace.
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