All about St. George
The St. George Spirits teams produce three different Gins, each with a very different flavor profiles. When developing their recipes, they realized they needed to make three very different products to fully express their love for the Spirit!
St. George's Terroir Gin is arguably the most well-known of the three, and is made with three local botanicals (and a load more traditional ones) as an ode to the Golden State, including Douglas fir, Californian bay laurel and coastal sage.
The distillation process is three-fold, too; fir and sage are distilled individually in a smaller still to account for regional variation and minimize the impact, the fresh bay laurel leaves and juniper berries are vapor infused, and the remaining botanicals are macerated in the bottom of the 1,500l still.
Both distillates are then blended together to create Terroir Gin, a Spirit which is, as its name suggests, truly inspired by the woods.
All about St. George distillery
The St. Georges Spirits company has a long old history – at 33 years, it’s one of the oldest craft distilleries in the United States. In 1982, the company was founded by a German man called Jorg Rupf, who had moved to the Bay Area from the Black Forest.Inspired by the local fruits, added to his passion and knowledge of distilling from back home, Jorg began distilling an Eau de Vie. Back then, St. George Spirits was a one man band with only one product.
Fast-forward to current day, and the company has a new Master Distiller, Lance Winters, a former Naval Engineer who’s been with the company for over 20 years.
It’d be an understatement to say the St. George Spirits distillery is big; it sits in a 65,000 square foot aeroplane hangar – formerly the Alameda Air Station – in California, and is full of equipment.
The distillery has a huge number of different stills, and today make three different Gins, Vodkas, Absinthe (the first US distillery to produce it following the ban in 1912), Whiskies, Rum and more.
Distillery info
- Country: United States
- Established: 1982
- Address: 2601 Monarch Street, Alameda, CA 94501, USA
- Phone: (510) 769-1601
- Website: http://www.stgeorgespirits.com/