“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. Thus, the abomination.Take a moment and picture the Willy Wonka factory smashed together with Harry Potter World. ![]() This is where we tasted their Abomination Whisky (Sayers of the Law expression), which is made using an 18 month Islay Scotch that is aged using a process designed to imitate aging in a late-harvest Riesling barrel…which doesn’t exist. Wells character who conducts grotesque experiments on animals and humans. This room is modeled after The Island of Doctor Moreau, who is an H.G. Whisky IslandĪfter touring Lost Spirits’ lab space, where we saw their gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer, we headed off to the last stop on the tour: Whisky Island. And then we try to reproduce that flavor, which requires more yeast, and thus the cycle continues. ![]() The upshot? Instead of smelling something nasty and rotten, we smell something that reminds us of mango, or pineapple, or blackberries. ![]() The other (and more important for this rum) is that they have learned to create an enzyme that allows them to bind an alcohol molecule to their short-chain fatty acids, turning them into a compoud called an “ester.” Esters are responsible for the fruit smells and flavors we associate with all our favorite foods and drinks. One is that they have learned to speak bacterial languages, emitting short-chain fatty acids that tell bacteria to stop reproducing. Jamaican High Ester RumĪfter checking out Bryan’s proprietary technology, we tasted a Jamaican high ester rum, and Bryan explained the importance of the age-old battle between yeast and bacteria, where humans are recruited as an asset to allow the rapidly-evolving yeast to maintain the upper hand.Įssentially, yeast have adapted a few key superpowers to help them beat back the advance of quick-spawning bacteria. Then, the liquor is transferred to another machine that uses intense light to quickly degrade the American oak staves, which are sourced from a cooperage in France. These machines accelerate the process of barrel aging by heating the booze up with the wood, extracting a catalyst that initiates the process of stearification. According to Bryan, it’s the most interesting room in the distillery, filled with clinking devices that he invented in 2014 and patented in 2015. This use of water serves two functions: A.) it creates an environmentally friendly heat sink, and B.) the humidity plays foil to Los Angeles’ dry atmosphere, generating a tropical micro-climate more true to where rums are normally distilled. The next stop on the tour requires a ride on an actual boat, which floats on the water reservoir used to fill the mash tuns and cool the condenser on Bryan’s pair of ornate, hand-made stills. This is a heavy, Guyanese-style pot still rum with notes of boat tar, gun powder, and dried tropical fruit.ĭuring this part of the tour, Bryan explains how sailors in the British navy “proofed” their alcohol, ensuring that it was safe to take aboard and wouldn’t ruin the gunpowder if it was spilled during battle. We begin in a chartroom-style room encircled by ornate, high-back armchairs, where we tasted Lost Spiris’ Navy Rum, weighing in at 68% ABV. This episode is an interactive virtual tour of Lost Spirits Distillery in Los Angeles, CA.
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