North Carolina’s Appalachian Mountains have a long history when it comes to distilling spirits, with moonshine in particular flourishing during the Prohibition era and beyond. These breathtakingly beautiful mountains also provided the inspiration for our July 2021 Gin of the Month, Chemist American Gin. Which Craft Gin Club members can find in their July 2021 Gin of the Month box.
We caught up with the distillery’s founder, Debbie Word, her daughter Danielle Donaldson and her son-in-law James Donaldson to learn more about how their mountainside experiments paved the way for the creation of this remarkable spirit.
Chemist American Gin
Distilled in Asheville, North Carolina, USA
45% ABV
Botanicals:
Juniper, coriander, angelica root, orris root, grains of paradise, orange peel, sweet orange peel, rose petals, rose hips, bilberry, lemon verbena, grapefruit peel, green anise seed, cassia, cinnamon, tangerine peel, lemon peel and peppermint leaf.
Tasting Notes:
Alongside juniper, you get a wonderful bouquet of citrus aromas on the nose, which gives way to floral notes from the rose petals and rose hips on the palate, as well as a touch of spice on the finish. It’s a light, bright, and botanical-forward gin that’s ideal for summer sipping.
The spirit of North Carolina
For many, Asheville, North Carolina, is synonymous with breweries. So much so, it has earned the moniker ‘Beer City USA’ and is a haven for tourists looking for a taste of its nectar. But its history is also deeply rooted in the making of moonshine. At the height of Prohibition, Asheville was filled with speakeasies and pharmacies administering ‘prescriptions’ for alcohol, and moonshine was brought down from the surrounding Appalachian Mountains by the truckload. Today, there’s another liquid, aside from beer and moonshine, that’s also attracting people to the area in droves: gin.
The Appalachian Mountains
Like many a moonshine maker before her, Debbie Word’s gin story begins in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains.
“The Appalachian Mountains were the initial area in the United States where moonshine became a thing again, a decade or so ago. We happen to have a place up in the mountains in the middle of that area. Making moonshine is quite a traditional pastime up there. I tasted quite a few – real, traditional moonshines made in someone’s backyard – and I couldn’t stand any of them! So, I decided to try to figure out how to make my own, with the aim of making something that was actually palatable.”
“We were sitting around the table in the mountains and talking about moonshine and the local area, and mom asked: how hard is it to distill?”. “I had just graduated with a degree in Chemistry, and I said, ‘You know, that’s the first reaction they teach you to set up in a Chemistry degree; it’s really not that hard to set up distillation!’ and it spurred us on to try it for ourselves. The first thing we made together was delicious, so we ran with it.”
From there, Debbie’s kitchen stove, in the heart of the mountains, became a hotbed for experimentation, and the family began crafting a rum-inspired spirit.
“Traditional moonshine made in this area was corn-based. Rum was easier to start with as I was able to buy sugar and molasses in mass. We also tried making potato vodka, which was a debacle – it tasted like burnt potato!”
Alongside moonshine, another tradition rooted in the Appalachian Mountains is that of medicinal herbs. Ingredients that grow in abundance in the mountains, including rose, peppermint and lemon verbena, were also used to inform the spirits Debbie and her family were crafting – and are ultimately used as botanicals in Chemist American Gin, which you unboxed this month.
The name Debbie opted for, Chemist Spirits, has a double meaning, playing on not only the role of chemists at the height of Prohibition but the fact that Debbie’s daughter, Danielle, is a working chemist in Asheville today.
From the Ground Up
Chemist Spirits founder, Debbie Word
With the vision for their brand in place and successful experiments well underway, Debbie purchased a disused car lot in downtown Asheville. From there, she began to turn her homemade recipes and passion for all things Prohibition-related into reality by converting the car lot into a modern-day working distillery.
It was around this time that Debbie took a trip to Scotland with her sister, where she stumbled upon what was then the smallest craft whisky distillery in Scotland. While the owner, Tony Reeman-Clark, was out of town at the time, the distillery team later introduced Debbie to him, and they had an instant connection. In fact, Tony is now Chemist’s Head of Production.
“Tony ended up introducing us to the Portuguese gin still makers and consulting us through the whole gin-making process.”
Today, the Chemist Spirits distillery features Hoga stills from Portugal ‒ the same brand Debbie happened upon in Scotland – with two 500L spirit stills for gin making and two 1000L stripping stills for whisky, all heated by direct fire.
“There’s essentially a big bonfire underneath the pot stills – it’s a traditional way of doing it, and I’m a big fan of tradition.”
Tradition also played a big part in the creation of the distillery’s adjoining speakeasy bar, Antidote, which – unlike the car-lot-turned-distillery – was built from the ground up, on what was formerly the car lot’s car park. Filled with relics from the Prohibition era, including original prescriptions, it acts as a museum for turn-of-the-century history, on top of being an outstanding bar.
Inside, you’ll find antique medical trinkets behind glass, vintage pictures and diagrams from medical books, and there are two giant murals on the front of the distillery and bar buildings, too, designed by son-in-law James.
“I started out my career as a landscape architect. I’m deeply passionate about historical preservation and preserving details and character. I became a little obsessed with making the bar as authentic as I could. It’s filled with antiques, even down to most of the lighting, which I had restored.”
The back bar itself is an old apothecary!
“There’s nothing out of place there, it all looks like it’s been there for a long time. I love to stand inside the door and hear people’s reactions when they first walk in.”
Chemist Spirits' Antidote Bar
While the distillery today is a far cry from the family’s early experiments in the mountains, the business is still very much a hands-on and craft endeavour.
Once Debbie feels she has a recipe that’s honed and it has been tasted by Danielle and James – who handily live around the corner from Debbie – Debbie takes it to the distillery, for bar manager Jack Casey and his team to try.
“Jack and his team will always come back with feedback and tell us whether they think it’s too sweet or too citrusy or needs paring back a bit. It’s such a bonus for us to be able to do this, and especially important in our development to have this component.”
As well as working on flavour profile, Jack and his team of mixologists and bartenders also come up with an array of delicious cocktails, which are served to the public in the Antidote bar.
Chemist American Gin
In fact, bartenders and mixologists played a leading role in the development of the recipe for this month’s Gin of the Month, Chemist American Gin, which has its origins in those first mountainside experiments.
“We’ve had a mixologist as part of our team from the very beginning. Our first bar manager, who is still a very good friend of ours, worked with us on our recipes from early on to make sure they played well in all of the cocktails you could think to put them in. We wanted to be able to detect the distinct flavours in the gin, but also to have something that any bartender or anyone at home could just pull off the shelf and put in a cocktail and know that it would work.”
James and Danielle Donaldson of Chemist Spirits
Chemist American Gin is every bit compatible with cocktails as Debbie, Danielle and James first hoped.
“It’s an American gin, and our very first gin. We call it an American-style gin because it’s not too heavy on the juniper. It’s made according to a modern style that we’re seeing emerge in America and other countries around the world. We knew we wanted to create a more modern expression that was vapour-infused, which is a Dutch-style method of making gin, and that we wanted to create something that would be a unique flavour of the area, since it’s so rich in local botanicals. Using vapour-infusion meant we had an opportunity to use a lot of botanicals that we wouldn’t have been able to utilise properly if it had been made in a London-dry style, where everything would be steeped and done in one distillation.”
As a result, the vapour-infused Chemist American Gin is what James calls a ‘botanical-forward’ gin. An array of citrus is used in its production, including lemon, orange, sweet orange, tangerine and grapefruit.
“The bouquet of citrus gives us the ability to garnish the spirit with an array of citrus fruits, and that immediately brings those particular botanical notes to the fore.”
Alongside citrus, you’ll also detect a subtle spice, as well as floral elements, coming from rose petals and rose hips. Other botanicals featured include bilberry, green aniseed and lemon verbena.
“It’s a great summer gin. It’s exceptionally light, with floral and citrus notes and a little bit of spice. It’s my go-to gin because it reliably works in classic and modern cocktails alike. It uses a wheat base to give it a smooth and creamy mouthfeel. It’s extremely easy to drink and use, which was our goal.”
Like the liquid itself, the bottle for Chemist American Gin is also highly influenced by the local area, and you certainly get the feeling it wouldn’t look out of place on a pharmacist’s counter at the height of Prohibition.
“It pulls inspiration from many turn-of-the-century medicine bottles, and the label was designed in an old apothecary style. Our logo is also a twist on the Bowl of Hygieia, the classic symbol of pharmacy – we were inspired by the signs we would see hanging outside of old chemists and apothecaries.”
The stills that make Chemist American Gin
Very much a product of its history as well as its landscape, Chemist American Gin is Craft Gin Club’s first North American Gin of the Month and we can’t wait for you to try it. Fancy rustling up a cocktail or two created by the team at Chemist’s Antidote bar? Turn to page 24 to whip up a Captain Commander.
The Chemist Spirits Range
Chemist American Gin
July’s Gin of the Month is a ‘New Western’ style gin that uses vapour infusion to downplay the juniper and to accentuate notes of citrus, rose and spice, as well as local mountain botanicals from the highlands of North Carolina.
Chemist Barrel Rested Gin
Chemist’s Barrel Rested Gin uses Chemist American Gin at its heart. The flavours of the American Gin, including juniper, rose and citrus, intertwined with notes of creamy caramel and warm vanilla coming from the mature freshly-charred American white oak barrels it is rested in.
Chemist Navy Strength Gin
With its signature golden hue, this transatlantic gin features fresh macerated Spanish sweet orange and juicy Thai ginger for a smooth and bright finish. At 57%, it’s full-bodied and holds its own in cocktails.
Try Chemist American Gin in Craft Gin Club’s July Cocktail of the Month and July Perfect G&T! You can find the recipes by clicking on the images below.
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