Episode 284

Foraged Spirits with Tony Gugino

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Foraged Spirits with Tony Gugino

Episode 284

DISCLAIMER:

None of the content in this show (or on this webpage) is intended as nutritional or medical advice.
Never consume something if you don’t know what it is or if it’s 100% safe for you to consume. This includes normal, healthy folks, but applies doubly for children and people who may be sick, pregnant, or nursing. Consult a doctor before making changes to your diet.
Also, never consume something if you’re not certain about potential environmental contaminants from where it was harvested, including pesticides, pollution and heavy metals, groundwater contamination, and industrial or agricultural run-off, just to name a few.
Finally, be sure to follow all federal, state, and local laws about where and when you have the right to harvest, transport, and possess certain species of plants or animals. These laws exist to protect you, me, and the environment.

What’s shakin, cocktail fans?

Welcome to Episode 284 of The Modern Bar Cart Podcast! I’m your host, Eric Kozlik.

This time around, I’m joined by Tony Gugino of Eighth District Distilling in Manchester, Connecticut. He’s a distiller, forager, and outdoor enthusiast who draws inspiration from the natural world to inform the way he ferments and distills the delicious spirits he produces. He was also recently featured on a recent episode of the Discovery Channel show, Moonshiners: Master Distiller, where he triumphed over two other competitors in a foraging-style distilling challenge.

In this down-to-earth conversation with distiller and outdoorsman Tony Gugino, some of the topics we discuss include:

How Tony’s childhood exploring and fishing in Upstate New York inform the way he moves through the natural world and experiments with botanicals in his spirits.
The attributes and attentional faculties that separate experienced foragers from everybody else, and why foraging is less about memorizing plant names than it is about developing spatial awareness and being in open dialogue with the world around you.
Then we use Tony’s recent victory as a contestant on Moonshiners: Master Distiller as a case study for how to build a foraged spirit from the ground up, analyzing not just the ingredients he used, but how he braided them into a cohesive, symphonic product.
We also delve into designing foraged cocktails, specifically: using seasonality and natural harvest cycles as a way to break out of the cloistered, “riff on a classic” approach that can place some bartenders in a creative rut.
But foraging isn’t just for distillers and bartenders–it’s for everyone, so we conclude by offering some advice for home bartenders who have the option to start experimenting with foraging at a truly intimate scale.
Along the way, we cover all the reasons why I was jealous of Tony when I first met him, how to make salt – yeah, you heard me…salt, the connection between Mulberries, Silk, and Connecticut’s textile industry, and much, much more.

Featured Cocktail – The Golden Ghost

This episodes’ featured cocktail is: The Golden Ghost. To make it, you’ll need:

¾ oz Espadin Mezcal
¾ oz Blanco Tequila
¾ oz of clear Creme de cacao
¾ oz genepy (which is a green alpine liqueur from France)
1 dash of orange bitters

Combine the ingredients in a mixing glass with ice, stir until well chilled and properly diluted, then strain into a Nick & Nora glass, garnish, and enjoy. More on the garnish in just a moment.

The Golden Ghost is a Bijou riff minted by bartender Brian Evans of the bar Sunday in Brooklyn sometime around 2018. Instead of 1.5 oz of gin, you’ve got a split base of mezcal and tequila, which kinda tracks. Some of those mineral agave flavors can act like botanicals. The ¾ oz of creme de cacao nods to some of the deeper more confectionary notes that a good sweet vermouth will provide in the Bijou cocktail, with the genepy standing in for Chartreuse to tone down both the proof point and the pour cost.

This drink caught my eye because genepy comes up as a foraged ingredient later on in this episode, and I also thought that the recommended garnish for this drink might be potentially divisive. Normally, Evans recommends soaking a star anise pod in overproof vodka, then setting it aflame before placing it in the drink. This would doubtless provide a theatrical, smoky, and licorice-forward accent to the flavor experience, but I don’t know that everyone wants a star anise pod swimming around in their Nick & Nora glass.

So I’ll pose the question to you: if you had to go out and forage a garnish for this cocktail, what would it be? Clearly, it would be subject to the natural landscape where you live – that’s just a given. But more importantly – what flavors would you try to complement: the agave? The chocolate? The alpine liqueur? That faint hint of orange from the bitters?

There’s so many ways to go with this. And that can be intimidating. But luckily, if you stroll over to the window and look outside, or pay attention next time you’re out for a walk, chances are that Mother Nature will throw you a little shimmer of inspiration.

This episode was made possible with editing and sound design by Samantha Reed, and foraged spirits and cocktail insights courtesy of Tony Gugino of Eighth District Distilling. This has been a Direct Fire Studios production, copyright 2024.

Foraged Spirits with Tony Gugino

Featured Cocktail – The Golden Ghost

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