Artisanal Vodka's OK, Right?

Oh, vodka. Pal of tonic. Warmer of Russians. Slayer of sorority girls. In college, you ruined me over & over again in shoddy Smirnoff form and, as a result, I now shun you. HARD. I mean, you’re just…blecch…difficult to…gag…BARF…get down.

That's why this past Sunday afternoon, when I headed to a block away from Gowanus Bay in Sunset Park to check out Industry City Distillery, producers of that aforementioned evil alcohol, I had to retch a little bit on the inside...for old times sake, obvs.

Industry City first became a reality ten months ago, when five dudes—Max, Dave, Zac, Peter & Rich—began The City Foundry, a "research and design group focused on improving small-scale manufacturing processes through the blending of science and art." The basic idea is that they figure out ways to help small businesses succeed.

Photo via The City Foundry Flickr

It's TOTALLY DIY, man. I mean, c'mon. Just look at those f'n matching jumpsuits...they're like a moustachioed Devo without the hats. Men without hats? If that doesn't scream "DIY," I don't know what does.

The City Foundry has a few projects in the works but for their first they created Industry City Distillery, an operation that was built entirely from the ground up on the sixth floor of an industrial space on 35th St.

To start, they spent three months building out the space with areas for machining and welding and whatnot. Then they friggin' built their own batch fractional distiller & fermentation system, allowing them to work with something that was both small-scale & affordable.

From there, they brought in a 1930's era letterpress that was once used make funeral cards. They cleaned it up and now Rich uses it to make their labels & coasters & print materials.

Photo via The City Foundry Flickr

When I was visiting, Rich & Peter were lovingly affixing labels by hand onto each bottle. DIY 4EVS!

After three months producing & perfecting their sugar beet vodka, by the second batch it was ready to go, so they made it available for sale. At the moment, they can produce a keg of the stuff every twelve hours, but over the next four months they plan to expand their vodka empire, increasing production tenfold. Because they've built all their own equipment, it'll be scalable when they make the next two production increases. Eventually, they'll have to outsource some shit (glass blowing is ruff, dude) but they'll always be able to keep the vodka-making in house.

Zac, who heads up the machinery, gave me a tour of the place, explaining a lot about the distillation & fermentation processes, but since chemistry & applied physics are responsible for a good portion of those processes, and I was still nursing a Saturday night hangover, a lot of it sort of went over my head. I did retain this much though:

Photo via Industry City Distillery

The fractional distiller divides the beet sugar solution into five parts. They then extract & blend certain amounts of these parts back together to create their vodka, which gives them more control over the final product.

Photo via The City Foundry Flickr

As for the fermentation, they only use glass & stainless steel instead of copper (which gets hot, removing the sulfurs). Also, the fermentation's done as a continuous process with mobilized yeast. This apparently allows for quicker and more cost-effective production. Also, science.

After my tour, I got to sample a little bit of the final product. My stunted vodka palette detected that it had a clean taste with a sweet start & a peppery finish that didn't burn. Post consumption, I didn't even feel like retching all over Peter's lap and the freshly-labeled bottles before him. That's definitely a positive sign.

In Park Slope, you can find these goods at Borisal Liquor & Wine, that hooch joint just across 10th St. outside of the 4th Ave-9th St stop. Throughout NYC, Astor Place Wines and a few other places like Sycamore Bar down in Ditmas Park carry it. If you're one of those sick fucks that actually enjoys the taste of vodka, it's definitely worth picking up a bottle. You won't even need to pair it with OJ to dull the burn. Sure Industry City's another in this decade's tsunami of Brooklyn artisanal purveyors but hell, dudes seem to be putting their all into it & in the end, it's better than supporting an artisanal mayo shop, right?

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.com.