In a Tough Era for Bars, SLO Spirits Clubs Keep Drinking Convivial
Under the glow of hand blown glass teardrop lights, two men wait expectantly at a copper horseshoe bar with an expansive white caesarstone quartz top. Colorful vintage surfboards decorate the distillery, and the rough-hewn shelves above the bar, made from repurposed planks from the Pismo Pier, hold a wide range of Rod & Hammer’s SLO Stills spirits. Above the two men, lights twinkle from a navy yard rope, while pipes carry grain from onsite silos to neighboring SLO Brew.
Distiller Paul Quinn approaches them and places two whiskey tumblers on the bar. These two men have been waiting for this tiny five-gallon barrel for a year, tasting it at its inception and again after three months of aging in New American oak. They are members of the distillery’s Barrel Club, an exclusive club that offers the opportunity to experience a single barrel of spirits as it ages — and the ability to conduct an entire tasting outdoors, lounging on a sofa by a firepit at the distillery’s outdoors tasting room.
“We’re walking members of our local community through the distillation process and teaching them to create a unique spirit that’s entirely influenced by their preferences,” says head distiller Paul Quinn.
A unique aspect of the club is that members get to decide when the spirit has finished aging by tasting it periodically.
“Barrel Club members are able to taste and determine when the whiskey has come of age for bottling,” says Quinn. “At the end of their first membership allocation they will have the option to purchase approximately 28 bottles of customized bourbon.”
Known for its small-batch craft whiskey and twists on traditional whiskey cocktails, Rod & Hammer’s SLO Stills distillery was founded by two friends — Rodney, a California surfer, and Hamish, an Australian jackaroo, or a young cattle-farming apprentice. Hamish’s family farm in Australia provided the surfboards and steer skulls that adorn the distillery. The pier planks above the bar represent Rod’s love for surfing. As an ode to Rod and Hammer’s friendship, the spirits are cut with purified water from the Pacific.
Master distiller Quinn, who lives in Paso Robles but commutes to SLO every day, grew up in the business. His family owns Opalo Vineyards in Paso Robles, and he worked in the spirits industry most of his life. Quinn was working packaging wine in next-door SLO Brew’s production facility when he was hired to work for Rod and Hammer’s SLO Stills.
Through the Barrel Club, Quinn shows members, from newbies to connoisseurs, how the whiskey ages and its taste develops. “I talk to them about why it tastes this way as opposed to six months ago, and what things affect it,” Quinn says. “It’s a learning experience — some are whiskey aficionados, but most aren’t.” Quinn says the range of members coming for private tastings includes everyone from family members to work colleagues.
At its grand opening, the Barrel Club offered tastings of fresh white unaged whiskey — otherwise known as white lightning — which resembles vodka in its clarity, since whiskey coloring comes from barrels. The taste, Quinn says, is “quite raw, without much complexity, as if you’d soaked a bunch of oats and non sugary cereal in water and you could taste the corn and rye in the liquid.”
There’s a neat trick to tiny barrels that makes the tasting process quicker and more fun, Quinn says. With small five-gallon barrels, the large amount of wood surface area to actual gallons of whiskey, compared to the usual 55 gallon barrels, means that the aging process is accelerated. “Right off the bat, I thought it would take a year for our club spirits to come of age,” Quinn says. “In those five-gallon casks, most whiskey will reach a rich complexity in six months.”
The initial tasting of the clear unaged whiskey, Quinn says, teaches club members how important the barrel is to a whiskey’s taste. Members come back to taste again three months later, witnessing the impact of the barrel aging, including vanilla, roasted marshmallow and fruit flavors.
Then, Quinn adds water to create a little magic. The addition of the water changes the chemical composition of the mixture, allowing the proteins to separate and opening up the whiskey.
“We get people to understand the different chemistry, to taste whiskey quickly with a high proof and then add a little water and taste again,” Quinn says. “Then, we add an ice cube, and they taste as it slowly lowers the proof. At first, it’s tightly wound, with lots of oak characteristics, and then later, vanilla, cherry and ripe fruit appear on the palate as the spirit opens up.”
Members can add flourishes to increase smokiness by adding oak spirals that the distillery provides. When members buy their bottle, they can add an additional oak spiral provided by the distillery.
Each year, the Barrel Club plans to add a new spirit, according to Quinn. The first year was bourbon, the second year is single-malt whiskey, and in the third year of 2022, the distiller hopes to import tequila from Jalisco in a tanker truck. “The idea is that each year opens up more opportunities.”
The annual membership gives members access to discounts, events and parties, which Quinn says “we’re going to go full ham on next year.” The distiller says that the distillery will double its budget to make up for lost event programming this year.
Quinn says that in the absence of in-person events, the Barrel Club’s personal touch has helped the distillery connect with customers during these difficult times.
Sarah Saldo, the tasting room manager at SLO Stills, personally handcrafts the bitters for their cocktails and calls all the Barrel Club members monthly to book their tastings. Quinn has staffed other tasting employees in e-commerce and customer service via phone. Quinn says the community response to the Barrel Club and its personal attention has been tremendous.
“Social distancing has restricted people’s ability to see large groups of their loved ones and local businesses are doing their best to fill that void by offering up more intimate experiences,” Saldo says. “We aim to keep people feeling lighthearted, happy and connected to their community while making sure the appropriate safety measures are in place.”
If you can’t join the Barrel Club and make it into the tasting room in person, the Be Your Own Bartender series allows spirits fans to enjoy their small-batch specialties at home. And now SLO Stills can ship state-wide.
“For the first time, due to ABC regulation shifts in response to COVID, we can ship our spirits directly to homes across California and offer our spirit club memberships to folks out of the area,” Saldo says.
The selections for Be Your Own Bartender include reserve rye whiskey crafted from in-house beer mash, straight rye whiskey, classic American straight bourbon, an uncut cask bourbon, California juniper, Valencia orange dry gin, and a chill haze filtered Vodka. But The Spirits Club members get special limited releases like dragonfruit gin, single-malt whiskey, barrel-aged gin, and Big Jim’s Bottled Rye Manhattan, which clocks in at 35 percent and is meant to be shaken with ice. Spirit Club members also get access to free virtual tastings and instructional recipes for cocktails for that month’s spirit.
Rod & Hammer’s SLO Stills is also planning virtual tastings and cocktail kits, after seeing its large-format Big Jim’s Bottled Rye Manhattan sell out in two days. The distillery has experience with virtual whiskey tastings, having volunteered the service for charities like Dignity Health, including donating $7,000 of wine for COVID-19-related equipment.
“We’re just starting to lay the foundation for a virtual whiskey tasting program and our community has been incredibly responsive to those efforts,” says Saldo.
The next step in hosting virtual tastings, Quinn says, is to obtain smaller-format bottles. “We’re working on getting some smaller-format bottles so we can go smaller than 750 millileters,” Quinn says. “If we did a virtual happy hour with 300 millileter flasks, we could do a gift set and do them quarterly. Then, we could all just socialize and talk a little bit over Zoom.
California residents can order bottles delivered to their homes, or can grab spirits to go when they visit the outdoors tasting room for a whiskey cocktail. To make your own SLO Stills cocktail at home, grab a bottle of bourbon and some housemade spiced strawberry bitters for this strawberry mint julep recipe.
SLO Stills Strawberry Mint Julep
2 oz SLO Stills Straight Bourbon
½ oz simple syrup
A splash of lemon juice
3 drops SLO Stills spiced strawberry bitters
Strawberries
Mint leaves
Muddle fresh strawberry and mint in a cocktail shaker. Add the bourbon, ½ oz of simple syrup, a splash of lemon juice, and three drops of SLO Stills spiced strawberry bitters. Stir and strain over ice. Garnish with mint and a strawberry slice.
