Friday, July 23, 2010

Happy Birthday FLD.

1 year ago on July 17, we opened the doors of our tasting room without a lot of fanfare. Since then, we've hosted thousands of visitors, perfected the quarter ounce pour, and had a great time along the way. We'd like to thank all of you for your support in Year #1.

With the craziness of the season upon us again, we haven't had time to plan a proper celebration for our fans and customers (perhaps something this fall?), but we did want to recognize the contributions of our excellent staff in making our first year a success.

Those of you that have visited our tasting room know how lucky we are to have personable, well educated staff members. We constantly get comments from customers about what a great experience they've had meeting with our people.

Last night we celebrated with a cruise aboard the Malabar VII Schooner - True Love. It was a perfect night for a sail - mix of sun and clouds with a nice wind. Great food, lots of laughs and of course, a few cocktails, were enjoyed by all.

Anyone visiting our area should make a charter on True Love part of the experience.

Thanks again to all of you for making it a memorable year!


The FLD crew getting ready to board


Some of the FLD girls on the deck of True Love


Thomas and Bill discussing something very important, I'm sure


Glenn & Mike
Docking for the night back in beautiful Watkins Glen

Monday, July 19, 2010

More good reviews, including another mention in NY Times

Top NY Times Wine Critic, Eric Asimov, recently dined at ABC Kitchen, a great new restaurant featuring our products in NYC. He kicked off the evening with a McKenzie Rye Manhattan and seemed to really enjoy the experience. Click here for the article and recipe. My favorite line: "What makes this Manhattan so good...is the combination of superb ingredients in it."



We've also gotten some great press/reviews on several of our other products. About.com whiskey writer, Lance Mayhew, is rethinking his aversion to vodka after tasting Vintner's (did he really compare us to Biggie Smalls?). Bill Dowd is enjoying gin season with some Seneca Drums in some pretty interesting cocktails.

We're also getting lots of great comments on our recently sold-out McKenzie Bourbon: read here and here.

Don't take the critics' word for it - come out and see for yourself. We're open every day 11-5 and now available in about 150 retail locations.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Whiskey Situation

Sad to say, we are officially out of Bourbon. The last 3 cases moved out of our tasting room yesterday afternoon.

Fortunately, Rye Batch #2 is here to save the day. We are bottling it fast and furiously and have some available in the tasting room today. It tastes very similar to Batch #1. One subtle difference is a strong note of honey. When we were fermenting the grains that went into this batch almost a year ago, we noticed a honey smell. Apparently, this continued through our distillation and barrel aging program.

Like Batch #1, we also finished in local sherry barrels which gives a little sweetness and a raisin-like quality to this otherwise spicy whiskey.

We're really happy with the result and hope you can find some time to come out and try (and buy!) it.