New Seneca Lake venture pleases both palate and eyes
It has been a long road for Brian McKenzie, president of Finger Lakes Distilling, and Thomas McKenzie, master distiller.
I first wrote about these gentlemen, who are not related, and their plans last July. They have been working since then to finish their production and tasting facility on Route 414, six miles north of Watkins Glen.
The distillery produces high-end gin, vodka, whiskey, cordials and brandy from locally grown produce. The tasting room is not open yet, but this craft distillery already has offered tastings in the Elmira, Corning, Watkins Glen, Binghamton, Ithaca, Penn Yan, Geneva and Canandaigua markets. Some products are available in those markets, too.
But we are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, though. What about the distillery?
The copper still arrived from Germany and was ready to be installed in the new facility last December. The 25-foot copper column for the still came in 3-foot sections weighing about 250 pounds each.
Although it was a challenge assembling the still, it was finished the week before Christmas, and a test batch of vodka was made from the distillery¹s own 2008 Catawba harvest.
Native Catawba grapes are making some of the best vodka, Thomas says, because the product retains some of the grape flavor after going through the still.
The flavor of the more expensive vinifera grapes seems to disappear in the process, he says. “The nose of it just goes away in the still,”
Thomas says.
One vinifera that has been tried successfully in the still process is gewürztraminer, which is used to make brandy. They also are experimenting with Pinot noir and Vidal to make brandy. “We¹ve got to try a different variety of things to see what works,” Thomas says.
The distillery produces five different kinds of whiskey: unaged corn, bourbon, rye, wheat and single-malt. The fruit products include peach, black currant and honey walnut liqueurs, and Maplejack, which is apple brandy sweetened with maple syrup.
According to Thomas, there hasn¹t been a real peach brandy made in the United States since the 1940s, when Jack Daniels stopped producing Lem Motlow¹s Peach Brandy. Brian says, “A lot of vintage cocktail (recipes) call for peach brandy.”
The gin starts with a grape base, which is put through the still with 11 botanicals, including juniper, coriander, citrus peel and cucumber. Thomas and Brian came up with their own signature blend of these botanicals to create their uniquely flavored gin.
Their product is a delightful combination of flavors; I told Brian and Thomas that I thought it was almost a shame to mix it with tonic. It is that good on its own!
A visit to the distillery will be quite an adventure for the tastebuds as well as the eyes. The building is nestled in the side of a hill; when you first approach it, you can see much of the 25-foot tall still and production area through the large glass windows. Going up the slope, you enter the tasting room on the second level and approach the tasting bar with its tin-tiled front and stainless steel countertop. The back bar is made of locally harvested red oak and decorated with a Portuguese brandy still.
A unique lighting fixture, a canoe, hangs near the ceiling to light the bar area. According to Jim Gray of Elmira, who made the canoe, it is 16 feet long and weighs only 30 pounds. It is made of an ash frame and aircraft Dacron, which shrank to the frame when heated with a blow dryer. Jim maintains that even as light as it is, the canoe could be used on the water.
While you are enjoying your stop at the tasting bar, you can look through a wall of windows toward the copper still, to the left, or the barrels of aging whiskey on racks to the right. The big mash pots also are visible below.
The floors in the tasting room are something special, too. “We wanted a little taste of Kentucky up here,” Brian says. Oak flooring from an old Kentucky tobacco barn was used to make the floor boards. Brian Kelly, owner of Barn Shadow Enterprises in Wellsville, says, “Basically we make products from reclaimed and recycled barns.” In Kentucky, oak trees were what were available when the barn was built.
The boards of the reclaimed barn were processed at Barn Shadow and milled into tongue-and-groove flooring for the tasting room floor and face of the checkout counter. What a way to bring wood with a history to a beautiful new facility.
I just can¹t wait for this place to let its first customers walk up to the tasting bar. With the samples I¹ve already tried, it¹s going to be a “grand opening.” Here¹s to you, Brian and Thomas.
Brian and Thomas hope to open their doors to customers in early July. You can check to see exactly when that will happen as well as get regular updates as to what is going on at the distillery at:
www.fingerlakesdistilling.blogspot.com
Jeff Richards has been covering the Finger Lakes wine industry since 2002 in his column, The Wine Guy. He is the photo editor of the Star-Gazette in Elmira.
