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48
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
JULY | AUGUST 2016
the
Cocktail
issue
Atelier Vie
New Orleans, LA
— by
Nora D. McGunnigle
Jedd Hass opened Atelier Vie in 2012, in the Art Egg building
under the South Broad St. overpass in Broadmoor.
This small distillery has released unique variations on familiar spirits,
like absinthe and gin. Atelier Vie’s Euphrosine Gin #9 is an award-
winning, delicate spirit with its signature herbal ingredient, bay leaf.
Tasty on its own, Hass decided to take it a step further by aging
his gin in second-use, American whiskey oak barrels for several
months to create a more smooth, amber-colored product that
has the faintest notes of whiskey and oak, creating a complexity
not seen before in Louisiana-made gins.
Hass says that the first batch sold out quickly but reassures
consumers that due to subsequent larger batches, the Barrel-
Finished Reserve is currently available on an ongoing basis.
Atelier Vie’s Toulouse Green absinthe, released in 2013, is a labor
of love that enforces its mission to utilize Louisiana products
in their spirits. The main ingredient in absinthe, wormwood,
is such a product—Atelier Vie distributed wormwood seeds
to local farms to grow and harvest before returning it to the
distillery to become absinthe.
Bayou Rum
Lacassine, LA
— by
Nora D. McGunnigle
Bayou Rum, made by the Louisiana Spirits distillery in Lacassine,
Louisiana, is distilled in a traditional copper “pot still” using 100%
natural, unrefined Louisiana cane sugar and molasses, originating from
the M.A. Patout & Sons Enterprise Factory in Patoutville.
Louisiana Spirits has been creating rum using its traditional “sugar house
recipe” since 2013 when the distillery’s Silver Rum was released.
According to Trey Litel, Co-Founder and President of Bayou Rum, “We
were inspired by the dedication of Louisiana sugar farmers and sugar
mill workers who have competed successfully for that last 230 years on
the world market.When we started talking to them about our idea, they
told us it was a 50-year dream of Louisiana sugar workers to have rum
they could call their own. This changed our perspective on the project
and made it much bigger for us.”
Louisiana Spirits also distributes Bayou Spiced Rum, made with local
Louisiana spices, as well as its signature Bayou Select, dark rum fermented
with proprietary cane yeast and aged in American oak bourbon barrels.
Each 750ml bottle of Bayou Select is signed and numbered by the distillers.
For something that’s a little different, try Bayou Satsuma Rum, a liqueur
made with Bayou Select rum and local satsuma juice.
Regarding growth and expansion, Litel notes, “We have increased our
batch sizes and increased our bottling days to meet demand for 20 states
and two provinces in Canada so far this year.”
He adds, “Bayou Rum is growing largely because of the success in our
home state of Louisiana and the support of local retailers like Rouses,
our third largest retail customer in the USA right now. We are blessed
with local support, and we don’t take that for granted.”
Hass notes, “This proved to be somewhat of an innovation;
one of our farmers contacted university agricultural experts for
cultivation assistance; the experts found the idea of Louisiana
wormwood production to be novel.”
Hass points to the long historical connection between absinthe
and New Orleans, as the inspiration to create Toulouse Green
and Toulouse Red, including absinthe’s place in the city’s
signature cocktail, the Sazerac.
“With this long cultural association between the spirit and the
city, distilling absinthe in New Orleans seemed like an obvious
fit. After absinthe production was permitted again in 2007,
some of the new brands, not produced in New Orleans, sought
to capitalize on this association with the use of New Orleans-
themed brand names. It seemed the time was right to make an
authentic absinthe in New Orleans; a perfect combination of
product and location.”
Toulouse Green has garnered a gold medal from the American
Distilling Institute as well as a place in the Galerie D’Absinthe
in the Southern Food and Beverage Museum.