Cue Johnny Depp punching me from behind a barrel, in “self-defense,” of course. First, is their Navy-Style Rum, a Jamaican rum inspired by the night Davis was watching Pirates of the Caribbean and thought it would “be cool to reach out and actually taste the rum they’re drinking.” So, naturally, on the tour, there’s a room to match. (No children were harmed in the making of this comparison).ĭuring the tour, you’ll taste each of their spirits in a themed tasting room. Their distillery is basically It’s A Small World if it smelled like fermented rye. “Once the spirit arrives in California, we meld the traditional Islay juice with the profane 21st century sciences which Lost Spirits is famous for. The result is a spirit so good it will make connoisseurs question their very definitions of right and wrong.” We question our definitions every day we make the choice to put on pants. Moreau, because nerds grow up to be successful, Ashley.Įach is made from a heavily peated base spirit from Scotland. On the whiskey end, they’ve created an “ abomination range,” each named for a chapter from The Island of Dr. It now includes a Navy Style Rum, and a new Cuban-Inspired 151. That Colonial American-Inspired Rum put them on the map, but they’ve expanded their line since (also they only made 25 cases of that one, so good luck finding a bottle). Love cocktails? Make sure your home bar is stocked with these 10 essentials. “In October of 2014, when we got the first real match to a conventional product, we realized this was actually a big deal.” When I’m bored, I’m absolutely fidgeting with my lab equipment and not at all repeatedly Venmo requesting $300 from my ex.Įventually, their efforts led to venture capitalist investment, the patenting of their proprietary reactor, and a move to Los Angeles. It got really interesting about five years into it when we started getting very close approximations, and began to wonder why we were then using a barrel at all.” “I was trying to figure out how to approximate mature spirits so that I would know if a given yeast strain was going to work well with a given still design and barrel type. So waiting twenty years to see if an idea pans out? No thanks. Because patience might be a virtue, but I don’t even wait for the microwave timer to beep before I open the door. They soon set to work on figuring out how to age spirits faster - much faster - than nature intended. We built the stills from sheet copper with a hammer and a torch.” Oh, and one of the steam vents just happened to end up shaped like a dragon’s head. “We built the fermenters from sheet copper and old oak tanks found in Napa. The steam boilers were made of old, broken down ones we found on Craigslist for $500 and then repaired from the service manuals.” The only things on Craigslist I’ve ever found are bed bugs and dudes trying to pay me to shave their neck hair.ĭavis continues. “I went to work figuring out how to make our own equipment. I know that doesn’t exactly paint the picture of “broke,” (I miss appetizers), but Davis says to create a distillery from the ground-up on just $80,000 was “a small miracle.” The pair had been previously living in Spain distilling Port of Barcelona gin, Obsello absinthe, and, presumably, hallucinating green fairies.Īfter five years in Spain, they returned home to California, where they built a new distillery with just $80,000 and an acre of land. The Lost Spirits Distillery was founded in 2010 by Bryan Davis and his longtime partner Joanne Haruta. Photo by Laurel Dailey What is the Lost Spirits Distillery? The scrappy innovators behind the Lost Spirits Distillery also figured out how to create a 20-year old rum in six days. If you are, we’re looking for another member to join our Dungeons and Dragons team.īut it’s not all sound and noise signifying nothing. The experience of touring the facility is one-of-a-kind, if you’re into German robot birds and moats in the middle of buildings. In a nutshell, that’s the Lost Spirits Distillery. Then, layer a working rum and whiskey distillery on top and throw it in the middle of Los Angeles. Take a moment and picture the Willy Wonka factory smashed together with Harry Potter World.
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