Feast unveils Top 50 in St. Louis!

Feast 50 LogoPinckney Bend Distillery was voted the runner up for best distillery in St. Louis in the 2015 Feast 50. This Q&A was conducted with Vice President of Sales & Marketing Ralph Haynes

Tell us about a few of the distillery’s signature spirits. Pinckney Bend Distillery has four signature products, three of which are spirits: Rested American Whiskey, American Gin, and Cask Finished Gin. All three of these have been awarded gold medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, with the whiskey winning a double gold medal. Both our Rested Whiskey and American Gin have also been awarded silver and bronze Medals, respectively, at the International Wine & Spirits Competition in London. Pinckney Bend Classic Tonic Syrup is our signature non-spirit product.

What have been some milestones in your career so far? Our distillery has achieved four major milestones in its five year history, each about one year apart. The first was winning a gold medal on our gin in San Francisco, one year after launch. The second was securing A. Bommarito Wines as our state-wide distributor. Third was winning two prestigious international awards simultaneously on our Rested American Whiskey. The fourth was unsolicited coverage by two important food/beverage/lifestyle websites with international reach (Playboy.com and Foodrepublic.com).
Clearly your spirits have resonated with customers – what would you attribute this to, and what does it mean to you? Our spirits resonate with customers for three important reasons: quality, locality and authenticity. Customers like the taste of our products, they appreciate the fact that we are locally produced, and when they come to visit the distillery, they see that we are the real deal. We have worked hard to bring customers out to New Haven, and when they make the trip we offer a valued distillery experience.
What do you hope to see happen next in the local distilling scene, and why? We’d like to see locally produced spirits claim a larger share of the Missouri market. It’s “the rising tide” thing. A Missouri Spirits Trail would also be great.

Where do you get your inspiration when developing new spirits? What inspires you and motivates you to do the work that you do? We draw much of our inspiration from the past, to which we apply modern scientific knowledge and technology that was not available to distillers who preceded us. They paved the way. We just extend the road.

What’s next for you and your work? If you want to know how whiskey might have tasted in the late 1800s, you need make it from the same open-pollinated corn varieties that were available to our predecessors at that time. Many of these varieties no longer exist, others are rare and hard to find and none are grown in commercial quantities. Pinckney Bend Distillery is now growing some of these varieties and plans to release its first heirloom whiskey in late 2016. It will be whiskey made from a corn variety of local historic significance, grown by local farmers. This is the future of Pinckney Bend Distillery.

 

Distillery Happenings: National Press

Map of the top 50 spirits distilled in the 50 states

Map of the top 50 spirits distilled in the 50 states

Playboy.com Picks Pinckney Bend Gin as Best Spirit Made in Missouri
In an article identifying the best spirit produced in each of the 50 states, our gin was named by playboy.com as the best spirit distilled in Missouri. You can read the entire article here

Food Republic Picks Stout Cask in Best of List
We also received some excellent ink at foodrepublic.com where our Stout Cask Whiskey was listed in an article that featured the best six cask finished whiskeys for dads. See who else made the list here

Pinckney Bend Gin Lab

Gin lab LR
There’s nothing simple about making good gin. Gin’s aroma and flavor profile result from a complex interaction of spirit and botanical components including roots, seeds, berries, citrus rind and more.

To really understand and appreciate gin, it is essential to experience what individual botanicals smell and taste like, and to get a sense of how they interact with each other. This is what Pinckney Bend Distillery’s Gin Lab is all about.

If you’re serious about gin, and want to understand what botanicals are and how interact to create a flavor profile, then this is a course if for you. Join Tom Anderson, Master Distiller, as he shares with us how to truly understand and appreciate gin. This hands on lab gives you the opportunity to sample 10 individual botanical extracts and learn how to create your own gin flavor profile.

To buy tickets for the Gin Lab on Sept. 15, click here

For more information about upcoming gin labs, visit our events section here.

Interested in having your own gin lab? Please contact us at accounts@pinckneybend.com

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