2024 Bostonapothecary Retrospective

Follow along: IG @birectifier

Did I get anything done? Let’s find out. Part of my year was dominated by a foster dog who stayed with us for 15 months, but just found her forever home in a beach town with a large yard so we’re very happy with the result. The other part was dominated by glassblowing. I released multiple, extremely affordable tools that should be standard in any distillery. A lot of people said it could not be done but I did it. It only cost me $15,000 worth of equipment…

[Diamond engraved numbers on spirit bubbles in a 19th century script.]

Next up in my life, which will effect the shape of the blog, is pursuing a project in southern Portugal. This will be a simple seaside cocktail bar and the project is largely driven by my wife. My challenge is raising money to move my workshop which is a separate issue from the cocktail bar. I may try to conceive a Bostonapothecary “yard sale”.

This also means there may only be eight months of birectifiers, clevengers, and spirit bubble sets, before production is interrupted and moved to Portugal where no doubt costs will go up (possible VAT & higher shipping). Now is your chance! Seize the day and support my workshop! Some other products will come online where people can be supportive. I’ve designed a very nice barrel thief and I’ve been making what I call nerdy nosing glasses (with lids!) and other cocktail glasses. If anyone loves this blog enough to front me a small private loan, please let me know.

The year kicked off in January with the return of a lost document that has proven very important: Barbet—Rhum—Recent progress contributed to its Manufacture. One of the most important things this document reinforces is the idea of a 5% ABV fermentation limit for harnessing certain types of extremely beneficial late stage activity by bacteria. Above 5%, late stage activity becomes increasingly benign. This decadent and expensive 5% number pops up in heritage practices and even Martinique’s grand arôme GI. Much of Arroyo’s work was pushing past this limit to develop more efficiency for heavy rum. Something very useful in the document is Barbet’s protocol for a fermentation test to understand the sugar content of your molasses. Barbet’s description is more complete than Kervegant’s.

The short 1983 document, French Rums, finally turned up from our hero Dr. A. Parfait. It is described that the LOAM agreement was tied to the rise of light bodied rums of the 1970’s and we see more of trade agreements shaping the flavor of rum.

The first observations made on the fermentations of molasses and cane juice showed that the active yeast was Schizosaccharomyces pombe. It still persists in some fermentations, leading to considerable content of aromatic impurities. An average composition of this type of product for which it can be thought that a mixed fermentation has taken place is presented in the Table. Clostridium saccharobutyricum seems to be an important bacterium in the mixture of flora, but its precise determination has not yet been formulated. Today, the species most widely seen in the musts is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, because it is more rapid than Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

Another INRA document I have not shared sheds light on their incomplete investigation of Clostridium saccharobutyricum. There is a little bit of a story there… There is later acknowledgement of INRA investigations of tropical hardwoods, but I have not found them.

Later, I updated my translation of Professor Fahrasmane’s 1996: Technology and typical elements of rums from the French West Indies.

Until the end of the 19th century, slops and froth were used in making the musts. Following Pasteur’s work, a new understanding of hygiene led to these substances being replaced by water, with the result that Saccharomyces yeasts replaced the Schizosaccharomyces as alcoholic fermentation agents.

There are modern ways to reboot 19th century character despite changes in processing technologies, but we have not even begun that conversation. Cory & I have a strong academic starting point, but some things cannot be explored outside of a cane growing region.

Late in January, I thought this would receive more attention, but it did not: Confections: Baking with Rum. I have since woven it into my dinner party routine. It is very hard to get rum people interested in rum even with a cool thesis: When economy is the concern, baking with the finest pricey rums may be a better value proposition than drinking them. I go on to explore how rum may be strategically used by the large scale commodity baker. My bet is that the current generation of formulators does not understand this strategy and it would be extremely profitable to teach it. Current sales to bakers are likely just received wisdom legacy remnants. Explore & profit!

I finally gave attention to H.H. Cousins 1908 rebuke of E.A. Pairault. This document was not new to the rum world, but was recovered in late 2019 by the fantastic work of Marco Pierini at Got Rum?. I annotated parts to draw more attention to the work and build upon my All The First Person Accounts of Jamaica Rum Production Made Accessible. My additional contribution was translating Pairault’s entire chapter on Jamaica as a companion at the very bottom of the post. How else would we capture gems like “smells like slippers”?

January just would not end and I came across Manufacture of Rum in the West Indies with Kingston Jamaica Consul JC Monaghan, 1917. Somehow this escaped Kervegant’s bibliography. “As a rule no sulphuric acid is added” [to Barbados rum…], very interesting…

February started and I released my first glass product: For Sale: Spirit Beads, Spirit Bubbles, Philosophical Bubbles ($20 USD). These started as a novelty but keep proving bizarrely useful. There are strong reasons they should become a standard tool. For certain distillery tasks, they can rapidly pay for themselves by reducing your sampling sizes. I just acquired a high end CNC router to produce boxes for these and then I will sell them as a cohesive set. Like the historic originals, the box is very important… I have even learned to diamond engrave 19th century style script on the glass. Quite a few people have been very supportive and purchased single bubbles to test out. Thank you!

In March, I translated Godoy’s 1916 Manufacture of Sugar Cane Aguardiente regarding production in Brazil. This led to some incredible conversations about heritage cachaça production.

They grind a little cane, until they obtain about 50 or 60 liters of broth, adding to this must, sour orange, corn meal, burnt straw, etc., adding this mixture to a fifth and placing it next to the fire so that fermentation can take place more quickly.

Importers, I’m waving dollars! Much of this is alive at Cachaça Século XVIII.

Something exciting to see are words in Portuguese that we can use untranslated like cocho for fermentation vat. Cocho could be translated to trough, due to its shape, and likely implies the same engineering as goes into animal feed troughs. Every distilling tradition, across languages is going to have words that should stay untranslated and we should learn what they are so we can celebrate them. Does Bourbon’s yeast vessel, dona, come from the same root as Cachaca’s dórna?

I was lucky enough to take another look at what is likely the world’s best new rum distillery with Birectifier Analysis of Line 44’s Heavy New Zealand Rum. Countless new distilleries have started making rum, but with only one other exception (our friends Black Frost!), no one else has delivered on any of microbiology of the 19th century or the works of Arroyo. This stuff may be second only to Hampden, but with a wild ester expression all its own. A lot of homework and collaboration went into this rum.

It begs the question, what is responsible for all that character? Even unaged, there is nuance, intensity, remarkable persistence, and intrigue. As I set up my tasting panel, aroma filled the entire room. I then left for lunch and the aroma was still there when I came back.

If you are a bulk buyer, contact me and I can arrange a sample. This will be the new Caroni.

April came around and I got to take a look at Birectifier Analysis of Radiant Bitters. The birectifier is so dynamic, it scales to bitters easily. I even blew them their own bitters bottle!

These are from the wonderful Dr. Kevin Peterson of Detroit’s Castalia cocktail bar and well worth knowing about.

In may, I penned An Introduction to “Nippy” Blending which zero people cared about. What I’ve found is that rum people like their scene, but not rum itself. It is very hard to excite people these days. The big lesson so far is that the best rum on the market is a blend of two rums (i.e. 80% Clairin Communal, 20% Dr. Bird!). One of the other major lessons that may have GI implications is that esters may be oak phobic with elevated ester levels enflaming oak character and making it taste cheap. A big limitation here was access to rums on the market and I tried to acquire some rums to assess their blending personality, but failed in getting ahold of them. What I also found with talking to many professionals about blending was that words failed them and they could not articulate many patterns. A few suspected this ester/oak relationship but were not able to prove it. To some degree, there are murmurs of this in Bourbon production. Ethyl acetate is only encouraged from time in the barrel. Bourbon wants the lowest starting point to minimize interference with the oak. Arroyo may have understood this but not spelled it out. I could expand on this.

Later in May, I wrote in my Blender’s Journal. I spend time collecting old passages on rum qualities for blending such as rasse or stalkiness. I also worked through the exhaustive test on quite a few commercial rums to quantify persistence which is a good proxy for luxury and high value aroma. At this time I was having a blast exploring Clairin Rocher in blends.

At the end of May, I explored the Blender’s 30% ABV White Bubble Test. I did not know when I first made this particular bubble that it would prove so useful. I simply needed another bubble for the set and picked a number that I knew was a unique sensory threshold from the literature. 30% is like seeing a spirit fully open. There is no cheaper way to set up this appraisal experience with extremely small sample sizes than a spirit bubble. This is now standard for any technical appraisal I do because its cheap, fast, and insightful.

In June, I was given the privilege of performing Birectifier Analysis of Demian Argentinian Rum. This wildly cool distillery has no U.S. distribution at the moment so it is a first glimpse of an exemplary rum production. My dream is to operate in Portugal at the scale of Demian. I really appreciate the effort and expense it takes to ship these samples across the world. This rum became part of my blend that was an enhancement of R.L. Seale’s 10 year.

[I think I went to Portugal right about here. We wanted to see the high season in the town we are attracted to.]

In July, I performed Birectifier Analysis of a 1971 Jim Beam Decanter. I have been doing case studies for nearly all the birectifiers I have produced. This is a unique one because the whiskey was damaged by extreme evaporation. It lost appreciable ethyl acetate as evidenced in the fractions. It also turned up significant iso-amyl-acetate—banana and that started really interesting discussions. A blog reader didn’t like my first explanation and they were correct in their criticism so that got me asking around. A lot was learned! I could not make some of this progress without incredible readership. Another note is the remaining sample was revived miraculously by adding exogenous ethyl acetate. We drank the doctored whiskey with extreme pleasure.

The iso-amyl-acetate conversation started another with a retired distiller and “With the Institute at the World’s Largest Rye Distillery”—a look at Calvert’s Baltimore Rye Whiskey, 1936 was recovered. They are distilling 85% Rye with 15% malt. Much of that rye isn’t even American and comes from Poland or Latvia due to quality constraints. Some of the malt in their yeast mash is even rye malt! There is even a three chambered still!

You follow the leads where they take you and Technology Transcends Heritage in Modern Distillery Practice, 1937 was recovered. This is a great Hiram Walker exposé. I saw this and thought, C.S. Boruff, that guy was known to be opinionated… and he certainly is! Here is a very unique vantage point from the restarting of the whiskey industry right after prohibition.

It was mid July and these previous posts inspired How Maryland Rye Was Made by Frank L. Wight which was a gift from Todd Leopold. Written just prior to repeal in 1933 by a renowned rye producer, we thought it should be out there on the open internet to inspire!

In August, I performed Birectifier Analysis of Destilaria Tonico Medronho. Medrohno may become a minor theme of a cocktail bar in Portugal. I could say a lot about Medronho and it’s quality is varied. This series, which will continue, explores organoleptic methods of technical appraisal that can be applied to any spirit. Medronho has properties that make it exceptional in cocktails.

The next August case study was Birectifier Analysis of Clairin Le Rocher. This rum grew on me and I began to see it as an incredible blending asset with an affinity for oaked companions. There is a unique note I believe to be diacetyl that contributes an easily salient buttery character—think certain Chardonnays. I even used Le Rocher in a carrot cake and the results were extraordinary.

It took me until the dog days of August to introduce the “Student” Birectifier. This is my lower cost version of the birectifier. A project in Portugal means these have a limited time frame for availability. There are/were 20 slots before the price increases, but I may add to that depending on demand. My craftsmanship is becoming excellent. The secret to glass production is extreme practice. I am not yet shipping overseas but that may change soon. I first offered this tool years ago for $1,800, made by a master glassblower, now my own is currently $525 (with added sweeteners!). The accessories to run it are also the cheapest they have ever been! Jump on it before its gone!

The next gem of the Algarve was Birectifier Analysis of Ponte Romana Medronho. This so far has easily been the finest of the Medronhos. It even had character that may be carotene derived (like rum oil). I would love to know more about this producer and their opinions. Some day soon I will!

Another Medronho was analyzed with Birectifier Analysis of Velho Terra Medronho. This was not very good, but I was learning… My appraisal techniques were in practice and quality was revealed (or not!).

By September, a nice amount of birectifiers were in the wild and it made sense to work on the Birectifier Instruction Manual. It is very comprehensive but not quite complete and I need to go back and explain how I successfully used the birectifier as an alternative to liquid chromatography to examine things like vinegar, muck, and dunder. At this time, I also went back and spent a lot of time editing my guide to Developing a Birectifier Heating Routine. These tools are the cheapest they’ve ever been and may ever be. Get yours before you can’t!

In October, I did not expect this, but I was able to start exploring the Return of the Clevenger Apparatus. I was prototyping another design which turned out to be a fiasco and then a superior design fell into my lap which is the 1955 grand Clevenger apparatus. There are a few reasons why it is superior to all other designs. A few distilleries are testing these out and they are available as a discounted “student” version. There are reasons why this should be standard equipment in any gin distillery. The biggest reason being low cost, low learning curve, and the information value. Read the post! Reviews keep coming back from my referee collaborators and they are quite good!

Later in October, I worked on Knowing Botanicals which is a collection of rare data on botanicals and ideas to go with them. I’m of the opinion that only a few gin distillers in the world truly know botanicals and there is a lot of untapped potential. If this is your profession, what does your professional development look like? I try to lead the way.

The year’s posts ended in November with more Line 44! Line 44 Distillery, the next Caroni? A Birectifier Examination. This is a rum to know about! Independent bottlers, we love you, get at me!

One more technique came out in December and that is using grand arôme rum, like Hampden’s DOK, to “anoint” other spirits, especially liqueurs. The term is a play on rum oil. For DOK, only 1% is added and then you go about business as usual. I have anointed everything in the cabinet, even lemoncello (which was glorious). Aperol, of course. Triple-sec, yes. For use in gin cocktails, especially. Many people have been confused by the Hampden boxed set, but my house is flourishing. We haven’t even drank anything straight. I’m making blends, I’m baking brownies, dipping cigars, and using my pipette to anoint every damn econo bottle that looks at me funny! The rum scene has not scratched the surface of what you can do with rum! Happy new year!

Buy a birectifier before I leave the country!