Spoetzl’s new line of spirits. Photo courtesy of Spoetzl Brewery & Distillery
Shiner beer is a rite of passage for Texans, and it’s practically a street cred of sorts to have a bottle or three of Shiner Bock at the ready in your fridge.
Now the state’s iconic, independent brewery hopes to earn a place on your liquor shelf, too. In recent months, Spoetzl Brewery (& Distillery) has been quietly rolling out a trio of spirits bearing the Shiner name on its gleaming white campus – and this month, the fledgling Lavaca County operation is making its new vodka, gin and moonshine available exclusively throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Until this week, the only place you could find Shiner Vodka, Shiner Gin and Shiner ‘Shine was in Spoetzl’s tasting room in Shiner, just steps away from a tiny distillery area that pales in size to the massive brewery works pumping out a dozen varieties of Shiner beer per year.
Spoetzl’s brewery — and now distillery, too — in Shiner, Texas.
“We’ve been selling the spirits right here in Shiner only,” said brand director Nick Welland. “That gave us some time to work out the kinks.”
Welland said what started out as a hobby project aimed at providing brewery visitors with “a more complete experience” became more of a mission.
“Once we got into it, it was like, we’re going to do it right,” he said. “This is not a cash grab.”
As evidence, Welland points to the products’ under-the-radar launch and a still purchased from a stalwart Scottish manufacturer.
“We’re just trying to make the best product we can,” he said. “When you’re brewing beer, you’re already 70 to 80 percent of the way there.”
Tom Fiorenzi, Spoetzl’s director of brewery and distillery operations, tapped Jessica Michalec, a fourth-generation Shiner native who had been a maintenance and engineering project coordinator at the brewery, to manage the distillery.
Spoetzl’s fledgling distillery operation sits just beyond its popular tasting room.
The spirits themselves are respectable: The vodka is, well, vodka, and the gin – “a gin for non-gin drinkers,” Michalec says – is a botanical, London-dry-style blend featuring notes of pecan and citrus. My favorite of the bunch, though, is the Shiner ‘Shine, a ruggedly grassy unaged spirit distilled from corn, barley and malt that rides off into your palate like a poncho-wearing Clint Eastwood.
“It makes people want to drink more, because of that long end,” Fiorenzi says.
The three spirits will be available throughout the DFW area for a year, and after that, who knows? The distillery also has a bourbon, rye and single malt whisky in the works.
“You think about how big the Shiner name is, but we really are a small operation,” Fiorenzi says. “We want to go in and make sure we do it right, and we’ll learn from that.”
Updated Jan. 21: Revised to add Goodfriend as site where Malort is available.
The Chicago-based curiosity known as Malort can be described in many ways, some of them actually printable: “I grew up on that stuff,” says Chicago-bred bartender Joe Mendoza of Cosmo’s in Lakewood. “It’s like gasoline mixed with turpentine — and the screams of Guatemalan orphans.”
Jonathan Maslyk, of soon-to-open Greenville Avenue bar Swizzle, compares its flavor to “pencil eraser” or “hangover mouth,” while Chicago native Susie Geissler, who writes for Fort Worth Weekly, says: “It tastes like falling off a bike feels.”
Jeppson’s Malort: Try it if you dare.
It may never be known whether the makers of Malort (rhymes with “cavort”) truly enjoy its bitter, piney, aggressively earthy taste, or whether it’s simply the cruelest prank ever perpetrated in the history of liquor production. But improbably, the Swedish-style liqueur is growing in popularity in Texas, with last year’s sales 29 percent higher than in 2018.
Its taste has been likened to grapefruit rind, red cabbage, tree bark, sweaty socks, even the drippings from a set of peeled-out tires or, as one scarred Fort Worth resident put it, “the ghost of an 18th-century whore.”
And yet, the number of places you can now find Malort throughout DFW is at least 17 and growing. Most are casual spots like LG Taps on Greenville, O.E. Penguin downtown and Eastbound and Down on Ross. But you’ll also find it at fancier digs like Origin in Knox-Henderson, Local Traveler in East Dallas and The Usual in Fort Worth, where bartenders have sought to craft palatable cocktails from the stuff.
“What it does to your palate is shocking and interesting,” Local Traveler’s Tommy Fogle says. Yes, in the same at-first-intriguing-then-utterly-horrific manner of Jack Nicholson’s Room 237 kiss in The Shining.
It’s not just that Malort is, well…. challenging. It’s that the taste lingers like an unwelcome guest who won’t go away. “It’s feisty,” says veteran Dallas barman Charlie Papaceno. “And it hangs around.”
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OK, by now you’re probably wondering: What the heck is Malort? Technically speaking, it’s a besk brannvin, a bitter version of Swedish-style liquor distilled from potatoes or grain – but Malort (the Swedish word for wormwood) ups the ante by adding dandelion to its namesake ingredient.
It’s unlikely anyone in DFW has experimented with more Malort cocktails than Tommy Fogle, here pouring his bubbles-based All That Jazz cocktail at Local Traveler.
An article last year in The Ringer detailed how Carl Jeppson, who’d left Sweden for Chicago in the late 1800s, created Malort in the fashion of his native country’s bitter spirits, which often used wormwood for the stomach-soothing qualities the herb purportedly had. (Supposedly, Jeppson’s tongue was so thrashed by his beloved cigars that Malort was one of the few things he could actually taste.)
George Brode, a Chicago lawyer, purchased Jeppson’s distillery in 1945 and ultimately formed Carl Jeppson Co. to produce it. Eventually, Brode’s secretary would take over the business after he died in 1999, continuing to make Malort even though it was barely profitable.
Then came the ongoing craft-cocktail renaissance.
Palates broadened, and tastes grew for more exotic and interesting spirits and liqueurs. Suddenly, Malort sales went from 1600 cases in 1999 to twice that in 2012 – and more than 10,000 in 2017.
Two years ago, the business was sold to CH Distillery in Chicago, where Malort has been a sort of initiation for years. Ask for a “Chicago handshake” at divey bars like Sportsman’s Club (cash only!) and you’ll get a shot of the stuff along with a cheap Midwestern lager.
“Malort is the quintessential Chicago spirit,” says Sportsman’s Club bartender Joe Schmeling. “Maybe there’s an element of self-hate, because of the weather.”
Chicago resident Matt Herlihy goes so far to say Malort is “kind of a joke.”
At Sportsman’s Club in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, the so-called ‘Chicago Handshake:’ Cheap Midwestern beer and a shot of Malort.
“I mean, nobody legitimately likes it,” he says over a burger at Chicago’s classic Au Cheval. “But sometimes when you’re feeling really Chicago, somebody will order a round, and you just kind of suck it up.”
The company thrives on that reputation, with ad posters bearing catchphrases like “Malort: When you want to unfriend someone… in person” or “Malort: Tonight’s the night you fight your dad.”
A famously un-aired Malort commercial features an increasingly tipsy Carl Jeppson IV shooting a devolving succession of takes in which he swallows a grimacing shot of Malort and attempts to deliver the company spiel; by ad’s end he no longer seems to mind. He is also barely standing.
The company’s approach seems to be working, with national sales trending upward. Meanwhile, Milwaukee held its first Malort festival in July, while in North Texas, Wade Sanders of Virtuoso Wine & Spirits reports that the regional rise in sales matched those of Texas overall.
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If a culprit you seek for all this local madness, then Zach Anderson of Lee Harvey’s in The Cedars is your man. First introduced to the stuff during a Chicago visit, the longtime barman, then working at Parker & Barrows in Bishop Arts, was eventually able to convince his Dallas distributor to order some for him.
Of the taste, he says: “It’s like a yeast infection got drunk on an IPA and threw up in my mouth.”
At Scofflaw in Chicago, The Morty cocktail cleverly tempers Malort with plum sake, creme de cacao and Manzanillo sherry.
Among those excited about Malort’s arrival was bartender Torre Beaurline, who’d briefly lived in Chicago some years ago. “As soon as someone found out I was from Texas, they would buy me a shot of Malort,” she says. “I had to get that thick skin, to where I would take it and just dead-eye ‘em.”
Now, she says: “Malort’s the best.” Having worked alongside Anderson at Parker Barrow’s, Beaurline has become one of Malort’s most fervent Dallas-area disciples, pushing it at the bars where she currently works, LG Taps in Lower Greenville and Mike’s Gemini Twin south of downtown.
“She guilts people into it,” says Gemini Twin bartender Chase Burns. “Like, one person will try it and she’ll be, like, ‘Hey! Are you gonna let him do that alone?’ ”
At Lee Harvey’s, Anderson says he loves to save Malort for those who approach him with requests like, “It’s my birthday! Can I have a free shot?” “And I’ll be, like, ‘Oh, have I got a shot for you.’ ”
A shot is the purest way to experience Malort, but for those fearful of going all-in or ready to move on to something different, here are four cocktails around the DFW area that utilize it with success.
River Runs Backward (Jason Pollard, The Usual)
At The Usual in Fort Worth, bar manager Jason Pollard punches gin with a quarter-ounce of Malort, offset by an equally potent splash of Green Chartreuse and a bit of dry vermouth. The result is dry and floral before it dips into the essence of worn boot, leathery and earthy with hints of caraway. The name refers to Chicago’s feat of engineering more than a century ago that reversed the Illinois River’s flow to keep waste and sewage from collecting in Lake Michigan.
Oh Ma’Lort! (Chris Heinen, Origin)
With its stylish, seasonal cuisine, Knox-Henderson’s Origin might seem improbable habitat for Malort, but manager Chris Heinen succumbed to the challenge of putting lipstick on this liquid swine. His bourbon-based cocktail spices Malort with a ginger-infusion, then adds pineapple liqueur to subdue the beast; the drink’s sweetness collapses under a current of wood chips. “It was a challenge,” he says. “This stuff is a bit of a dragon, so I thought taming it would be good. It’s like a Manhattan.”
All That Jazz (Tommy Fogle, Local Traveler)
It’s doubtful that any bartender in DFW has experimented with more Malort cocktails than Local Traveler’s Fogle, who has produced Malort variations on the Margarita and various tiki classics at places like Industry Alley, Small Brewpub, The Usual and now Local Traveler. “It’s slightly masochistic, but I like it,” he says. His latest, All That Jazz, drops Malort into a sparkling wine base with a wise dose of strawberry-hibiscus sweetness.
Chicago Negroni (Zach Anderson, Parker & Barrow’s)
Zach Anderson’s Chicago Negroni.
Zach Anderson, now at Lee Harvey’s, may have left this Bishop Arts joint but his legacy remains with this twist on the classic Negroni – typically a mix of gin, sweet vermouth and bitter Campari.
His Chicago Negroni subs Malort for half the Campari to surprisingly good effect.
That’s not all Anderson left behind, either: Look up Parker & Barrow’s web site and you’ll find… a bottle of Malort.
In the south of Mexico, people have been making mezcal – the smoky, agave-based forebear of tequila – for generations. But only on special occasions, like weddings or quinceaneras, would a mezcalero break out one of his rare pechuga mezcals – which unlike traditionally twice-distilled mezcal are distilled a third time, with a protein, typically a chicken or turkey breast, suspended within the heated still. (“Pechuga” means breast in Spanish.)
The pechuga mezcal made by Gracias a Dios for Dallas’ Las Almas Rotas using Texas smoked brisket. Both the bar and spirits purveyor Bar & Garden will hold launch events Saturday.
As the mix cooks, the meat drippings impart more of a savory quality to the finished product than actual meat flavor. “People get this idea that you’re going to taste the meat, and you really don’t,” says Shad Kvetko, co-owner of Dallas mezcaleria Las Almas Rotas. “It’s more of an umami mouthfeel. The flavors that come through are more the fruits and spices you put into it; I’ve had some made with green mole, and that you can really taste.”
With mezcal’s popularity booming, more pechugas are on the market than ever before. Late last spring, as Kvetko and his bar staff chatted with mezcal producer Xaime Niembro about the idea of visiting Oaxaca to see the production process firsthand, Niembro suggested making a pechuga while the group was there. Naturally, the conversation turned to what meat to use.
The brisket pechuga-style mezcal made by Gracias a Dios for Dallas’ Las Almas Rotas was flavored with Texas smoked brisket, prickly pear, chilies, corn and other local ingredients. (Photo by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)
“We said, let’s do a smoked brisket,” Kvetko said. “You know, make it kind of a statement.”
OK, this is the kind of Tex-Mex I can get behind.
Has a more Texas-style pechuga ever hit the market before? Doubtful. And from 6 p.m. until close Saturday, Las Almas Rotas will celebrate its one-of-a-kind creation, made in collaboration with label Gracias a Dios, at a launch party featuring Niembro and brisket tacos by Oak Cliff’s Brandon Mohon.
It was Mohon who smoked the brisket used to flavor the small, 80-liter batch, and the special-edition bottle’s stylish design, featuring a Dia-de-los-Muertos-style cow head, belies the effort it took to bring it to life: Before it could happen, the brisket first had to be smuggled into Mexico.
Gracias a Dios mezcalero Oscar Hernandez hands the medley of ingredients, including smoked brisket, that will flavor the pechuga mezcal to Las Almas Rotas co-owner Shad Kvetko to place inside the still. (Photo taken October 2018 by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)
Mohon used a smaller-than-normal cut rubbed simply with salt and pepper, making it slightly underdone knowing it would be further cooked in the still. “I wanted to give it some nice color so it would look like Texas brisket when it arrived,” he said.
Mohon vacuum-sealed the brisket, froze it and delivered it to Kvetko, who packed it in ice and squirreled it away in his Mexico-bound luggage. Luckily, he said, no one made a fuss about it.
Once in Oaxaca, Kvetko hit a local mercado and loaded up on other ingredients like prickly pear, corn, squash blossoms, Mexican stone fruit and a bunch of chilies. In they went, along with the brisket, into a cognac-style Charentais still – it looks a bit like a giant onion – that Gracias a Dios was using for the first time.
Kvetko got a tattoo of an agave plant to commemorate the making of the brisket pechuga mezcal. (Photo taken October 2018 by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)
The initial release of barely 75 or so bottles – a little more than two-thirds of the batch – was snatched up by spirits purveyor Bar & Garden on Ross Avenue, which sold out of nearly all of its supply through pre-orders within 24 hours. This weekend, the store will raffle off chances to buy the remaining few bottles at an event featuring Niembro from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday.
The $80 price tag is well worth it: The finished product, sweet and citrus-y on the nose, is complex and robust, best taken in small sips that deliver smoky spice and citrusy sweetness with a dark, warm undercurrent of savoriness.
“The nose I get is salt-water taffy,” says Bar & Garden’s Victoria Garcia. “It’s candy-esque, incredibly smooth.”
The rest of the batch will be stored in glass vessels for a while, to be released later this year or early next, and while Kvetko is excited to showcase the one-of-a-kind product, it’s the larger context represented in the bottle that warms his heart.
“It’s a symbol of cooperation and friendship between two nations,” Kvetko says. “And any show of friendship right now is great. We love these people. We love Mexico.”
Saturday, Feb. 2
Brisket pechuga launch at Bar & Garden, 3314 Ross Ave., Ste. 150, 1 to 3 p.m.
Pechuga Pachanga at Las Almas Rotas, 3615 Parry Ave. 6 p.m. until 2 a.m.
Whiskey Ranch sits on the grounds of the former Glen Garden Country Club in Fort Worth. (Photo courtesy of Firestone and Robertson Distilling Co.)
Five miles southeast of downtown Fort Worth, on a course where golf greats Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson learned the game, something cool is happening in the world of whiskey.
A spiffy archway off Mitchell Road marks the new portal to what was once the Glen Garden Country Club, a 112-acre property soon to be reborn as Whiskey Ranch. The handsome new development, which opens in mid-November, is the expanded operation of Fort Worth-based Firestone & Robertson Distilling Co., producer of TX Whiskey and, more recently, TX Bourbon.
Whiskey Ranch, though, is much more than a distillery – and it could portend the emergence of this juicy cut ofTexas, from Fort Worth down to Hill Country and the Houston area, as a distillery-rich region along the lines of Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail. Texas, after all, is one of the nation’s largest consumers of whiskey; why shouldn’t it be made here?
“It’s more than likely going to become a beacon of whiskey tourism,” says Nico Martini of Dallas-based Bar Draught, a cocktails-on-tap startup. “It wouldn’t surprise me if this part of the world becomes a known whiskey region.”
The facility’s dramatic, 50-foot-high copper column still is fully visible. (Photo courtesy of Firestone and Robertson Distilling Co.)
Owners Leonard Firestone and Troy Robertson conceived Whiskey Ranch not just as a place to make spirits but as a showcase to illuminate the production process, a site for charity and private events and a sampling area, all amid a still functional, par-68 golf course.
Showcase the process it does, with its radiant centerpiece a 50-foot-tall, Louisville-made column still, as well as massive fermenters that can be viewed up close and from a second-level vantage point.
Now, those who tour Firestone & Robertson’s primary distillery will find it nestled in a pastoral setting beyond a guard gate, abutted by a courtyard, retail center, tasting room and special-events space with a sweeping patio overlooking the golf course’s 18th hole.
In terms of property and capacity, the two say, it will be the largest whiskey distillery west of the Mississippi. And to their knowledge, the only distillery on a full-fledged golf course.
Says Robertson: “It’s kind of a whiskey wonderland.”
Co-founder Troy Robertson of Firestone & Robertson heads through the site’s “barrel breezeway” to the Ranch House’s elegant event space.
A PLAN BEGINS
The pair’s plans began to bubble five years ago after they, along with master distiller Rob Arnold, launched their palate-friendly TX Whiskey at 901 Vickery, their original, pot-still operation in Fort Worth’s Hospital District that they simply call “The 901.” Anticipating the need for more capacity to feed the spirit’s growing popularity, they also noticed a market for tours and special events. The idea of a multi-dimensional facility was born.
“We really wanted to share the process,” Firestone says, noting two factors that differentiate whiskey from, say, vodka – an aging component, and thus a need for storage space and more capital. “Whiskey making is really a mystery to a lot of people.”
A map showing the new entrance to the Whiskey Ranch grounds, off Mitchell Road in Fort Worth. (Map provided by Bread and Butter PR, for Whiskey Ranch)
Their eyes fell upon the former golf course, sprawling over the bluff in a modest residential area southeast of the city. Though fallen into neglect and shrouded by a half-century of overgrowth after closing in late 2014, it seemed perfect for their vision.
As the Fort Worth Star-Telegramreported, early opposition arose from some residents fearful of what an alcohol-driven development might bring. Ultimately, though, the city approved the plan.
Tours will end in the facility’s Tavern Room, where guests can sample the whiskeys and admire golf memorabilia.
In shaping their vision, Robertson and Firestone took cues from model Kentucky distilleries – the campus feel of Maker’s Mark, the vintage style of Woodford Reserve. Wanting to preserve as much of Glen Gardens’ history as possible, they garnished the tasting room with golf memorabilia and evoked the stone and wood design of the original clubhouse in the grand patio outside.
They also wanted to echo the feel of The 901, whose design incorporates reclaimed materials “partly out of necessity and partly because we liked the look,” Robertson says.
Co-founder Robertson with the TX pour in the facility’s tasting room.
TAPPING INTO THE SENSES
At the new facility, visitors will enter the “Ranch House” foyer, with wainscoting fashioned from repurposed pallets and a mosaic made from the brand’s signature boot-leather bottle tops.
That leads into a rustic retail area and further into what looks to be the classic rickhouse setting of a barrel-aging warehouse. The rows of empty barrels are actually a facsimile of what’s inside the distillery’s working barrel barn, an obsidian-tinted building a stone’s throw away that looks vaguely like a dormitory. It’s the first of five they’ve got planned on the site, ultimately creating room for 20,000 53-gallon barrels.
A patio adjoining the tasting room and special-event space overlooks the golf course’s 18th hole. (Photo courtesy of Firestone and Robertson Distilling Co.)
Firestone and Robertson created the smaller copy, which they call the “barrel breezeway,” since fire codes prohibit large numbers of people from wandering the real thing, Partway through the barrel-lined corridor, a right turn takes you into the chandeliered Oak Room, a special-event space with concrete floors and room for 180 people. More space is available on the patio outside, where two large fireplaces complete the lodge-like setting.
Just inside, through another door, is the so-called “Tavern Room,” where the near-daily tours will end and guests can sample TX whiskeys and cocktails made with them by a staff bartender.
Early on, as 16 months of construction and landscaping began, Firestone and Robertson noticed something as the overgrowth was cleared away: There on the horizon, at the edge of a sea of treetops, was downtown Fort Worth. “We realized we were on this bluff with an incredible view of the city,” Firestone said. “At night, it’s electric.”
That distant skyline view is now the focal point of the courtyard, which stretches from the Ranch House to the Stillhouse. Inside, behind a pair of two-story doors, is the dramatic column still that will allow for continuous production at the facility. Made by Louisville’s Vendome, the copper contraption is a distillery rarity in that it’s fully visible, with a window allowing guests to peer into its bulbous base.
The focus of the courtyard: the Fort Worth skyline view to the northwest.
A walk upstairs lets visitors rise with the copper column and look into the fermenters and see the yeasty bubbling of the mash. The entire experience is meant to tap into the senses, with production “designed to operate completely while still having people around,” Robertson says. “Nothing’s in the back room, so to speak.”
Production at the new facility will be underway by December, taking advantage of four deep-water wells onsite. But Firestone and Robertson will continue to make whiskey and offer tours at The 901, where they’ll also experiment with potential new products.
Their vision, they say, has pretty much aged and turned out as planned. If anything, it’s grander than they imagined, but as Robertson puts it: “Our aspirations have always been to compete at the highest level with the biggest whiskey producers.”
WHISKEY RANCH, 2601 Whiskey Ranch Road, Fort Worth.
Booze news and adventures in cocktailing, based In Dallas, Texas, USA. By Marc Ramirez, your humble scribe and boulevardier. All content and photos mine unless otherwise indicated. http://typewriterninja.com
