TASTE
The Tipple Effect
Capital Region craft distilleries are starting to bring housemade whiskeys to market
BY Daniel Barnes
The Young Prince is a bourbon made at California Distilled Spirits with corn and a smoky rye whiskey .
PHOTOS BY Debbie Cunningham
As in many distilled spirits , water plays a crucial role in the creation of whiskey . Ed Arnold , the owner and distiller at California Distilled Spirits in Auburn , believes that the “ exceptional ” water in Placer County gives area distilleries a unique advantage .
“ A lot of people have to go to a reverse osmosis process to get their water cleaned up , and then you have to add minerals back in ,” he says . “ Up here , it ’ s just beautifully , lightly mineralized water that ’ s come down through the granite of the Sierras . It ’ s rather similar to what we see coming out of the Highlands in Scotland .”
The whiskey portfolio at California Distilled Spirits includes The Young Prince , a rich and spicy bourbon made with the bare minimum of corn , and a smoky rye whiskey . “ That ’ s more polarizing ,” Arnold says of the smoky rye . “ The grain was roasted kind of like coffee to create that smokiness . I only recommend it to people who like a nice scotch .”
Arnold has another Scotlandinfluenced spirit in the barrel — a lightly peated , 100 percent barley single-malt whiskey that won ’ t be ready for at least another two years . “ This whole process is planting trees ,” Arnold says . “ You ’ re putting down your work , and you don ’ t know what it ’ s going to be like for years .” A handful of regions around the world and within the United States are synonymous with whiskey production . Irish monks introduced the elixir nearly a millennium ago , eventually spreading to Scotland , especially the Isle of Islay . The legacies of Canadian and Japanese
28 comstocksmag . com | August 2021