Twisted Path Distillery, inside Lincoln Warehouse (2018 S. First St.), offers small-batch, scratch-made organic vodka, gin and rum made with distiller Brian Sammons’ own unique twists.
Sammons, who owns Twisted Path with his wife, Laura Singleton, gradually switched from drinking beer to drinking spirits after he found out he had celiac disease. He developed an interest in the science behind distilling. “I’m an avid do-it-yourselfer, so the idea of making spirits myself was very appealing,” Sammons said. After the couple had their first daughter, Sammons wanted to open his own business and decided that a distillery would be the best fit. He left his job as an attorney and opened Twisted Path in December 2014.
Sammons and his father built most of the distillery tanks, stands and barrel racks from his own designs. The cozy yet classy tasting room, Dock18 Cocktail Lab, is located past dock 17 on the first floor of the warehouse. While Sammons didn’t intend for the tasting room to have a speakeasy-style entrance, due to the warehouse’s layout, visitors must ring a buzzer for entry. The tasting room is open Thursday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to midnight. Daytime weekend hours may be added beginning in April.
Vodka is available in 80 or 100 proof; the 80 proof for recipes that call for that strength. Sammons crafted 100 proof with mixologists’ needs in mind: higher-proof spirits can make a drink stronger without extra liquid from additional alcohol throwing off the drink’s consistency. Also, 100-proof vodka is perfect for infusing. “Some D.I.Y. nuts like me are infusing their own vodka with things like ginger or peppers,” he said. “It’s more of a real way to make flavored vodka. Most commercial flavored vodkas contain artificial flavoring.”
White and dark rum was Sammons’ first recipe. He explained that most rum is made from blackstrap molasses and white sugar. Blackstrap molasses, one of the cheapest byproducts of sugar, tends to have a burnt taste, Sammons explained, and most large distillers up the alcohol yield by adding white sugar. “What I did was find a molasses that has very little sugar taken out of it in the first place, and I just use molasses,” he said.
The certified-organic molasses results in a full-flavored rum that doesn’t require Sammons to remove off tastes created by blackstrap molasses. The dark rum is whiskey-like with an oak barrel taste, and is less sweet and drier, as Sammons doesn’t use caramel flavoring. He recommends the dark rum for whiskey or rum cocktails.
Sammons’ latest product, gin, is the result of more than a year of experimentation. He infused 11 teas and botanicals such as Honeybush, rooibos, angelica root and cinnamon to the juniper base. An additional twist is vapor infused hops, which adds a subtle citrus component. The complex flavors come out more with each sip.
Twisted Path spirits are priced at $30 and $35 per bottle and can be purchased from Dock18 or retailers including Sendik’s Food Market, Bert’s Beer & Liquor, Discount Liquor, Downer Liquor and Whole Foods. Restaurants such as Zak’s Café, Odd Duck, Wolf Peach and Hinterland feature Twisted Path spirits.
For more information, visit twistedpathdistillery.com.
