In an industrial area of Buellton, surrounded by winery production facilities and restaurants, sits Brothers Spirits. Inside, one of the brothers, Jay Lockwood, rests at a wooden table in the airy tasting area in front of several bottles of spirits. He is demonstrating how sampling spirits differs from tasting wine.
He repeats a lesson he got from a man from Scotland, minus the brogue: “Any time you’re doing a spirit tasting you treat it like meeting a fine woman in a bar for the first time,” he says. “It’s like ‘Hello,’” he continues, and with a wide arching arm he passes the glass under his nose, stopping only momentarily to catch a whiff. Another quick pass and he adds, “How are you?” continuing with his imaginary dating scenario. And then another quick pass of the glass under his nose and a, “Good to meet you.”
He said the pass-and-sniff method is preferable to the method wine tasters are taught of sticking their nose deep into the glass. That’s because wine is only about 12 percent to 14 percent alcohol, he explained, while his spirits run about 40 percent alcohol. “So if you put your nose too far down in there it might burn it off,” he said.
Jay is master distiller and co-owner of Brothers Spirits with his brother, Jeff Lockwood. The duo opened Brothers Spirits barely two months ago, and offer daily tastings of their small-batch, handmade liquors and spirits. Though the tasting room is still fairly new, the business has been in the works for several years.
How it began
The Lockwood brothers are longtime entrepreneurs. The two sold one of the first microwave bagged popcorns in the mid ’90s, they were into real estate development construction, they have owned athletic clubs and physical therapy companies, and they’ve even sold a barbecue sauce.
Jeff and his wife, Joanne, are owners of Bella Cavalli Farms and Vineyard in Solvang. The ranch features an equine facility, and the Lockwoods also produce wines. They were familiar with the wine industry in the area, but Jeff was also researching distilleries and how difficult it was to obtain handmade products made in the Old-World method. So in 2012 the Lockwood brothers began to discuss starting a distillery.
“When my brother [Jeff] called up and said ‘What do you think about a distillery?’ I said, ‘Can I make my tequila?’ And he goes, ‘Yes,’ and I said ‘I’m in,’” Jay said.
After three years of learning the ropes, building up inventory, and making sure they had everything just right, they opened for business. They joined the Buellton Industrial Way neighborhood, which also contains an established distillery, Ascendant Spirits.
They produce an albariño wine-based vodka. They also produce a malt whiskey, technically a Scotch, but they can’t call it that, because it’s not certified. It’s also made a little differently, using mesquite-smoked barley rather than peat-smoked barley.
They produce a 100 percent agave blanco tequila-style spirit. The agave for that one comes from Jalisco, Mexico, but it’s fermented and distilled here. Because it’s not all produced in Mexico, it can’t be called tequila, Jay explained. He said he plans to age the agave and out of it he will make añejos and reposados.
Their biggest seller, however is Brothers’ limoncello, which has been selling out. It’s made from organic lemons that come from Santa Paula, and only the zest is used. Jay said it’s also less sugary than some other limoncellos.
How to taste
In a valley full of wine tasting rooms it’s easy to find people who know about tasting etiquette. However, tasting spirits isn’t exactly sniff, sip and swirl.
Besides Jay’s caution to go lightly on the sniffing of spirits, there are a few other tips he offers patrons of Brothers Spirits.
When sampling spirits, the taster should approach the process slower. Also, you never want to take a mouthful. Instead, take a little bit and keep it up in the front of the mouth where most of the taste buds are, Jay said.
“We call it the Tennessee Chew. You kind of chew on it and let it get in before you swallow it. So you’re getting the before, the middle, and the after effects of it because it will have different effects on the mouth and palate,” he said.
Doing it all
Jay described the basic distilling process as stripping the alcohol from the water. He said there are three parts to the distillation process, and that during the process he is separating the elements. The first element, called the heads, starts boiling off at 165 to 166 degrees. That includes methanol, acetates, acetones, or what Jay calls “all the nasties.” Then at about 173 degrees “the sweet part,” which is the ethanol, is processed. After that he boils through to what is called the tails, which includes fusel oils, carbohydrates, and “all the garbage that’s left in it.”
He said a lot of companies will take the heads and tails and blend them back together because there is a certain flavor profile to it. But they also do it for the volume.
“We lose 35 to 40 percent of our volume by cutting those out, but our quality goes up about 100 percent. So we’re more interested in a low number of bottles but a lot higher quality,” Jay said.
By the way, if you’ve ever had too much to drink and suffered a headache and hangover the next day, that’s because of the tails, Jay said.
He said he and his brother do everything themselves at the distillery. Jay said the entire process of producing their spirits takes place entirely on the premises by the brothers. He even prints the labels, and washes and wraps the bottles himself.
“From the beginning, that’s what we wanted to be known for, the fact that we do everything ourselves,” Jay said.
That’s one reason you won’t yet find any aged spirits—because they just recently opened shop. However, they are working on aging some spirits and in a few years hope to have a fine selection. They also plan to add to their offerings and are currently working on adding hard lemonade, mescals, grappa, a certified malt Scotch whisky, and other spirits.
Shelly Cone can be reached at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 9-16, 2016.