Why Tamworth Distillery's Creepy Spirits are more than the Perfect Pick for Halloween
Editor’s note: Tamworth Distillery recently announced the seasonal re-launch of both Deerslayer Venison Whiskey as well as another seasonal spirit, 3 year aged sweet and spicy Graverobber Unholy Rye. Just in time for the Halloween!
As an advertising executive, Steven Grasse was known to detonate buzz-generating pranks he refers to as “creative grenades” like the announcement in 2008 of a fake luxury airline called Derrie-Air. Their slogan, “the more you weigh, the more you pay” referred not only to passengers’ fare but a supposed commitment to being carbon neutral by planting trees “to make up for the trouble of flying you from place to place,” the story was quickly picked up by news outlets including The Philadelphia Inquirer and Reuters. He admits such irreverence would probably be interpreted as insensitive or worse in today’s climate, so these days craft spirits have become his artillery.
Grasse is the founder of Quaker City Mercantile, a distiller, marketer, and distributor that’s the force behind including Hendricks Gin, Sailor Jerry Rum, Art in the Age Spirits, and Lo-Fi Aperitifs. Seven years ago, he launched Tamworth Distillery in New Hampshire's White Mountains, an endeavor inspired by the nineteenth-century Transcendentalists of New England that draw on local resources and serves as the parent company’s test kitchen-slash- lab.
Tamworth’s distiller and resident biochemist Matt Power has access to more lab equipment than much larger operations, often used to concoct spirits that are eclectic, left-of-center, and to the casual observer, just plain bizarre. But it’s not purely for shock value. “The goal is to explore and have fun,” Grasse says. “Tell great stories, excite the senses and boldly go where no one has gone before." He likens it to the boozy version of Hillary climbing Everest. Because it was there.
Take Deerslayer Venison Whiskey, infused with red deer sourced from a local farm. The meat is hand-chopped, mixed with cranberries, porcini mushrooms, juniper berries, and green peppercorns, fermented, then slow-smoked over boreal forest branches. While it may lend comparisons to pechuga mezcal, which is redistilled with fruits, grains, spices, and nuts and a raw chicken or turkey breast hanging over the still so its vapors can lend flavor, Tamworth’s whiskey is made in a rotary evaporator.
“We’re able to infuse it separately...bring the distillation through a large swatch of alcohol and down into the steam realm, which brings over quite a bit of non-traditional savory aromatics, almost what I would call minerality,” Power explains. Initially, they wanted to include actual deer’s blood, but USDA regulations required that it come from one of their approved slaughterhouses, which didn’t seem to exist. Not surprisingly, the hunting community, avid whiskey collectors, and those at the intersection of the two all went nuts for it. But far from being a novelty, the whiskey is a very nuanced product, with hints of smoke and black pepper.
Another whiskey tied to wildlife is Eau de Musc, which gets its taste from a secretion extracted from the anal glands of Beavers. It’s not something that slipped through the FDA, however; the substance, called castoreum, has actually been used in the U.S. in everything from baked goods and candy to candles and perfume impart a vanilla aroma and flavor. It’s an ingredient that appears on the GRAS list, a designation dating back to FEMA (that would be the Flavors and Extract Manufacturers Association) of flavors Generally Regarded as Safe.
Power was impressed with the FDA when he approached them with the idea; after all, as he puts it, the agency was bound by its own regulations. Tamworth works with professional trapper Anton Kaska, whom they colloquially refer to as “the Beaver guy,” to extract the castoreum sacs which would otherwise be discarded. The two-year Bourbon is flavored with the castoreum as well as birch oil, raspberry, and Canadian snakeroot, a woody, ginger-like spice; far from tasting musky or odd, the resulting whiskey is rather warm, palatable, sweet, enticing.
But not every one of these funky bottles resonates. Corpse Flower Durian Brandy is infused with the massive bumpy-skinned fruit grown in Thailand and Malaysia whose odor is so pungent that it’s often banned in Southeast Asia from hotels and public transportation. It’s meant to evoke the aroma of Amorphophallus titanum, the rare, fleeting so-called “corpse flower” native to Sumatra that blooms once every several to ten years for 12 to 48 hours, filling the air with the unmistakable odor of rotting fish, smelly socks, stinky cheese--and yes, cadavers. Grasse found that its unaged character and so-so label lacked appeal. But even more troublesome than that was the fact that since durian (or corpse flowers, for that matter) aren’t grown in the White Mountains, the whole concept was missing an intrinsic link. “It didn’t fulfill the promise or build the mythology of our distillery.”
As he points out, there are more than two thousand craft distilleries in the U.S., and most of them have a hard time ever breaking out of their immediate geographic market if their methodology of shock and awe brings attention to their core portfolio of well-made expressions it’s a means to an end. “But if it doesn't build your total brand, you're wasting your energy and even hurting your brand.” The process is not unlike that of a fashion designer whose avant-garde esoteric haute couture goes on to inspire next season’s more accessible ready-to-wear pieces. In Tamworth’s case, it’s come for the beaver goo, stay for the garden gins.
Authenticity helps, too, including an ethos of using local grain, water, herbs, botanicals, fruits, and vegetables, as well as marketing with compelling stories. Graverobber Unholy Rye is infused with maple syrup tapped from a maple tree on the property whose roots burrow to an unmarked Colonial-era graveyard--a practice that’s cursed, according to an old superstition. They timed the release with that of a horror movie-esque trailer, and the whiskey has been a perennial seller ever since.
Future ideas swirling about include spirits made from seafood, sea plant, or even moose excrement. Grasse is tight-lipped and optimistic about his next endeavor, tied to the four hundredth anniversary of the First Thanksgiving. Roasted turkey vodka? Lobster gin? Sweet potato rye? Details are forthcoming. ‘But we’re gonna do something that you’re gonna love.