"My wife and I are vacationing in Savannah Ga. and on the way there we stopped in St. Augustine Fl. to check out the historic side of Fla. Very interesting how much history is associated with Fla. All the battles and pirates and forts, well you get the picture. If you haven't been and you are from Fla you need to go. Now, I told you that so I could tell you this....we got to visit the newest ditstillery in Fla.
It's apptley named... The St. Augustine Distillery, I will add some pics. Right now they only have vodka and gin for sale because it'll be three years before the whiskey or bourbon is ready, but they wanted something to sell now and get the ball rolling.

They use fresh sugar cane stalks for the sugar, they squeeze the stalks dry and then ferment the juice. You may be thinking that sounds like rum but remember it's mollassis that makes rum, of course mollassis comes from sugar cane but mollassis is a bi-product of the sugar production process. As I questioned the tour guide about the unique flavor of they're likker he said....it's the mollassis that does it. So of course I had to say ..did you add the mollassis to the ferment????? He said nope just pure sugar cane squeezin's.

After the tour and as we were all getting a taste before purchaseing a bottle, I asked again, sir, do they add the mollassis to the ferment???
He quitely whispered, no but everybody likes to hear that that's what makes it special....I responded with, no worries, it's still ya'lls secret.

I also inquired about ferment temps, and what yeast they used and how long it takes to finish and about that time everything started being called ---- the trade secret, so I left it alone. After the tour they gave us several samples of a drink called The Moscow Mules ( which is what they use their vodka for) the tour guide asked if I was interested in a job, he said you must make beer cause I've never had any tour members ask such specific questions before, I just nodded and said......I dabble some.

Fun was had by all, and I'll get some pics downloaded soon. Thanks for playin along."

"I found a few minutes to add some pics, I thought this would be of some interest as to why the bigger boys would fight the hobby distiller going legal. Not that we would take any bussiness but every drop counts I guess. This is their gin and brandy still

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"This is their future whiskey or bourbon in the brand new barrells. Oh he also asked, does anybody know what has to be to call it bourbon? I was about to raise my hand and the misses grabbed my arm, then skrunched her face with that look that ment hush.....he got everything right except it has to come from Bourbon Co.Kentucky. We did give a little giggle at that moment.:) In the back of this pic is the SS fermenters that ferment at room temp, and it was pretty danged hot in there to me. I bet they circulate cool water through them somehow......another trade secret.

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"I wish I had a few, although I dont know what I would do with them. This distillery is very green, any liquid waste they have they take out to the sugar cane grower fields and use as fertilizer, in the end it's all just water anyway. When they made whiskey they took the slop with the grains in it and fed that to the farmers cows which of course made the farmer happy, you know free cow feed.
They also store the vodka in one of those until it's bottled and packaged for sale.
Turns out this structure was reappointed as a distillery and it was perfectly suited for it, it used to be an ice house so the floor is extra thick for the fork lifts and such. All the equipment you see is extra heavy I'm sure, one of those stills with 1500 gallons in it is 12,000 lbs. You know 8 lbs per gallon x 1500 gallons."

Nice! Those big Vendomes must a cost a pretty penny.

"This is the neutral vodka that they sell and it's as close to the neutral that I make as it can get........only $28 a bottle so we got a 2 pack box so we could give one to our horse sitter (she kept an eye on our horses whilst we were gone)

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Horses? You got Horses! Man after my own heart there... :)

You know this brings up a point. I have also found that the sweet spot on flavors is right around 80 too, esp. with the SF. Most tastings seem to prefer the 80's over the 90 and say the 70's lack bite of after effect on the palate.

BION, i hardly ever sip.. I'm too durn busy here with my little piece of God's earth and my music work to spend too much time admiring the shed wall in a haze spoon testing's enough to tell me no way, it needs temperin' to be gentle

Love Horses... Back up in Ks, I had a very nice Arabian I rode a lot. They'd taken a dressage animal and tried to cowboy him. I got him when he was an emotional mess and we learned there was a better life together :) God what a buddy he was... I tell ya, that's a great thing to have in this life.. He spent out his days riding with an Aussie saddle and on a 1400 acre lake preserve area. Never saw a horse that could pivot at full gallop (always announced by a flying lead change) like he could.. And you'd best be ready for it :)