St. George Single Malt Baller Whiskey

St. George Single Malt Baller Whiskey

Founded in 1982 by German-born Jrg Rupf, St. George Spirits is one of the oldest craft distilleries in the United States. The distillery, housed in an old World War II airplane hangar on a former naval base on the edge of San Francisco, is home to Lance Winters, mad scientist and St. George's master distiller. Winters, who is widely-known for experimenting with different types of spirits, has a laboratory dominated by a 10-liter test still in addition to the glass beakers and graduated cylinders that cover every inch of counterspace. Next to the dusty chalkboards caked with equations for the conversion of sugar to alcohol and intricate diagrams of molecular structures are bottles of experimental whiskeys, vodkas and even an aging balsamic vinegar (it's 14 years old already). According to St. George Master Distiller Lance Winters, St. George Single Malt Baller Whiskey is a California take on the Japanese spin on Scotch whisky. It is crafted from 100% American barley, mostly made of two-row pale malted barley, the remainder lightly roasted. The whiskey is filtered through maple charcoal and matured for 34 years in ex-bourbon and French oak wine casks, before being finished in umeshu barrels, a Japanese style of plum liqueur crafted from 100% California-grown ume fruit. The distinctive label, which re-imagines the legend of St. George as a samurai was designed by Oakland artist Sylvia Solochek Walters, and calligraphy by Eri Takase of Takase Studios.