What’s shakin, cocktail fans?
Welcome back to another episode of The Modern Bar Cart Podcast!
This time around, we pull up a seat to chat with Andy Keller, head distiller for Blackwater Distilling, Maryland’s oldest currently operating craft distillery. We examine one of the really unique and ambitious projects they began just a couple years ago: aging some of their product in a solera system.
Some of the things we discuss include:
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What a solera is, and how it’s used to add both consistency and complexity to a spirit.
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A tasting of Blackwater’s flagship products, including the first batch of their solera aged rum
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How the solera is organized and managed, including barrel sourcing, aging time, and blending specs.
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A vertical tasting from all five levels of the Blackwater Distilling rum solera – and this is where we really uncover some of the surprising differences between different levels and barrel finishes.
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Some interesting thoughts on yeast strains and fermentation styles
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What to drink if you run into Russian novelists Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky
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And much, much more