Old Fourth Distillery (O4D) is the first distiller to open in Atlanta since the Georgia state temperance movement trumped sanity in 1906. O4D opened in 2014, the same year I moved to town. In fact, it inspired me to dust off the ol' blog again several times - I vowed to stop by for a tour, tasting, and blog about it....alas it didn't happen until this week. Now back in the swing of things, I can give them a proper review. Although I'll start off by saying that my very first sample of their Lawn Dart citrus liquor product was at a neighborhood festival tent promoting a boozy lemonade at $9 for a 4oz cup. Underwhelming is being polite - it tasted like acidic moonshine straight off the still, ready to peel the enamel off your teeth. Shrugged it off as festival junk though, being poured by someone who probably didn't regularly work for the company.
Good thing I could see past that - they have a pretty decent product line. The tiny Edgewood St. facility is incredibly charming, in the heart of the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood (non-residents: city-central, blocks from where the MLK historic site is). They have tastefully appointed the storefront with relics of local pre-prohibition distiller's jugs, reclaimed materials from nearby demolished buildings of the era, and even a fairly realistic bookcase-camouflage door to the restroom. It's clear they're catering to the craft spirits/ale/hipster movement, but I really didn't get a pretentious vibe from the marketing or staff at all, just a genuine respect for history and some hometown pride.
I did the tour & tasting for $10 but for $30, you can do that plus pick out a bottle of their three offerings: gin, vodka, or the citrus vodka I mentioned. The "tour" is really just getting to walk past the glass barrier to where the copper stills and bottling lines are, but it's intriguing all the same. After a short overview of distilling 101, you can get a (nose hair-singing) whiff of the three different stages of spirit formation, and the different botanicals they use in their gin.The vodka is sugar-cane based and unsurprisingly a little sweeter than some, but certainly not mistakable for a liqueur. It's clean and neutral as vodka should be. One of their experiments to capitalize on the sweetness was to infuse it with cacao nibs - while we didn't get to sample it, I could imagine it being quite good. The gin was my favorite, bright with cardamom and citrusy with a clean finish. No spruce or overly strong juniper flavors like you get with London dry style. I will definitely be purchasing some when I get to the bottom of my Aviation bottle.
Lawn Dart, however, is the ginger-lemon vodka they are investing the most marketing in for now. Not sure why as the ginger is surprisingly not prominent and the lemon is like actual lemon essence, and not sweet like you might expect from a mass-appeal product. It would probably be ok in iced tea or...well, lemonade. It just left me confused and wanting to go back to the gin. Can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I think if O4D actually made it sweeter, or into actual lemonade or a liqueur, it might be a bigger hit. It's caught in a phase where it's not lemon vodka and not lemonade; it just needs to commit to something. They claim it's like a drier limoncello, which might be accurate but I feel like even limoncello is committed to a higher viscosity and has a fuller lemon profile. But what do I know?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please be advised: the author reserves the right to delete comments that are offensive, inappropriate, or commercial in nature at any time for any reason.