Second Liqueur Tasting Finale

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been on a kick about getting out of the house and doing stuff. Not necessarily to meet people, but more to just break up the routine. For example, on Halloween, I went to a cocktail class at my favorite local bar. A week later, I went to a cocktail class at the local distillery. And then a few days later, I was thinking of going back to the local distillery for a tasting panel. I had done one of their tasting panels in the springtime and again in early fall, so I knew it would be a fun time. What I didn’t know was how different things would be if I did another panel so soon. Therefore, I took the opportunity to talk about it with Hilary, the Lady of the Lair, while I was at the cocktail class. She assured me that my participation in the upcoming panel would be advisable because some of the flavors had been reformulated since the last panel. So I took the risk and registered, figuring that all I had to lose was driving out to the Capitol on a dark rainy night.

The Setup

The Tasting Room was setup just like the two previous liqueur tasting panels, except possibly with fewer tables and chairs than either of the previous panels. Of course, the tasting panel grading sheet at my seat was the main attraction for me. I was a bit disappointed that the sheet was exactly the same as the early fall panel because I had been looking forward to trying some new flavors - especially the Pumpkin Eight that Lelaneia had praised so highly. I felt a little better about the sameness of the roster when Lelaneia, the company founder, explained that this will be the panel that makes her decide which Wild Botanics she will launch in April 2019. And that she would make her decision the day after the panel, once she had read all of our feedback.

Much like the early fall panel, Lelaneia did her speech about the origin of the company - it started with lavender liqueur made from herbs from her garden - and about how to taste the liqueur samples. According to Lelaneia, we should take at least two sips of each sample. Because her liqueurs are so unusual, the first sip is just palate cleanser to get brain ready to taste. It’s the second sip that is the most important because it gives the senses a moment to experience what is really happening.

According to Lelaneia, one of the missions of her company is to get people to drink outside the box - and so she was striving to create liqueurs like nothing people had ever tasted before. Another of the missions is to create gluten free, additive free, all natural liqueurs, which was part of a mad scheme to put booze everywhere that she and other sensitive people could drink. Once Lelaneia had decided to launch her company, she created fifty different flavors in her kitchen. She eventually narrowed down that roster to sixteen different flavors that were probably market viable. Around 300 people tasted the sixteen flavors. These sixteen were further narrowed down to just six flavors, which included both entry level flavors and advanced flavors. And then on 14 April 2014, she signed papers to start the business.

The flavors that we would taste that evening would include some from the original slate of sixteen, plus some newer research and development flavors.

Spirited Teas - The Tea Liqueurs

When Lelaneia launched the Wild Moon line at the distillery, she had other ideas that had to sit on the back burner while she focused on the success of the first six flavors. However, now that the liqueurs are in eight different states, she is free to explore her other ideas. One of those ideas was a line of Spirited Teas, which would also have grab and go versions. There were seven different tea liqueurs (and related grab and go versions) because Lelaneia was trying to represent as many different continents as possible with the variety of flavors. Originally, she was thinking about cocktail making when she was creating the tea liqueurs; therefore, the liqueurs had stronger flavors and were not meant to be drank straight. On the other hand, the grab and go versions of the Spirited Teas would be a 200ml can that is clearly a tea with gentle carbonation, roughly equal to glass and a half of wine or beer. 12.5 percent alcohol by volume is the magic number for these cans to be able to avoid both refrigeration and expiration.

Only four of the seven tea liqueurs would be launched in the springtime, so I marked rooibos, Assam, Earl Grey and shu mee white as my preferences to be launched. Although rooibos remained at the top of my list, the other choices were different than the early fall panel. Rooibos is South Africa bush tea that is supposed to have a complex flavor. Although I have a canister of rooibos in my tea cabinet at home, I’ve never been able to successfully make a pleasant cup out of it. But each of the three times that I’ve tried the liqueur version, it has come out on top. The addition of the hibiscus liqueur to create a grab and go version was supposed to be like a bow on the package. However, the grab and go version tasted like lemon to me, so it ranked fourth among the other grab and gos. Assam is tea that grows in lowlands of India and forms the base for chai. The tea liqueur was supposed to be dark and peaty, like a Scotch, but I just got a very distinct and familiar black tea flavor that was very pleasant. The grab and go version didn’t really taste like the lavender liqueur that was mixed into it, but it was still good enough to be ranked as my second favorite grab and go version. Earl Grey tea is a black tea with the addition of bergamot, which is a tiny bitter orange. Even the third attempt at tasting this seemed to lack the distinctive bergamot scent and flavor that I so enjoy with the Earl Grey tea. (I like it so much that I usually drink a double bergamot Earl Grey!) The grab and go with orange and lemon was much more palatable; in fact, I ranked that as my top choice for grab and go, which was in line with what I did at the early fall panel. Shu mee white tea is made from baby tea leaves which have not been fermented. Although the liqueur was very mild, it definitely tasted like tea. Although Lelaneia said that blueberry liqueur seemed like the obvious choice to mix with the white tea, the grab and go didn’t taste like blueberry to me. But it was still pleasant enough to make my top three for the grab and go versions. Yerba mate, genmaicha, and chamomile didn’t really speak to me as tea liqueurs this time. Yerba mate tasted grassy and vegetal to me, and was my least favorite. The grab and go version with honey liqueur was much more pleasant, but still didn’t make it into my top four. Genmaicha tea is known as a poor man’s tea in China because it is mixed with toasted rice. To me, the toasted rice was so prevalent in the liqueur that it was reminiscent of toasted rice cereal. Lelaneia said that she wrestled with what to do with the genmaicha and that it took a while to decide to mix it with lemon liqueur. That was my least favorite grab and go version because, even though the lemon was pleasant, it masked the distinctive toasted rice taste of the tea. Chamomile was the seventh and last tea flavor that we tasted, and the only true herbal tea that didn’t register as caffeinated with Lelaneia. The liqueur was super mild, and almost tasted like straight sugar syrup to me. The grab and go version with grapefruit liqueur was also very sweet, and lacked the hallmark tartness of real grapefruit. I didn’t rank either the straight tea liqueur or the grab and go version very highly.

Wild Botanics - The Botanical Liqueurs

The next line that the company will launch will probably be the Wild Botanics line. The intent is for this to be a sister line that is very different from Wild Moon, but also very similar. Since the company had been working on this line for about a year and a half, it was time to decide which three flavors of the seven options to launch in Spring 2019, with other flavors in development to extend the line. Once the line is launched, it will only be sold at the distillery and won’t be pushed to stores and bars. The intent is for Wild Botanics to be sort of an underground secret. It will be the crazy stuff, but there will be recipes with the liqueurs when they launched so people have an idea of what to do with them. There were about 500 different flavors since the original short list. Lelaneia strongly believes that the world doesn’t need another apple pucker or limoncello, so she wanted her company to be creative and inventive and for the adventurous drinkers. And under Claire in the Research and Development department, she believes that the current roster of choices is solid. However, when deciding what flavors to launch, Lelaneia said that she needs to think in “verticals” - twists on regular flavors, herbals, really weird stuff, florals - and then launch across verticals. What that mean to me was that she intended to launch only one flavor from each category.

My rankings this time were a little different than the early fall panel. The five lemon was still my favorite, as it had a really strong lemon flavor with an herbal background. It was definitely different than the standard limoncello! However, the final version to be launched will probably be a seven lemon; unfortunately, I didn’t write quickly enough to catch all the varieties of citrus fruit and herbs that would compose the seven lemon. This time my second favorite was the super weird sumac, which had a nice and light almost citrusy flavor. Sumac itself is crazy orange native shrub with red berries that are used by Native Americans and in Middle Eastern cuisine. Also unchanged from the last panel was my vote that roasted dandelion root was absolutely vile. Lelaneia said that because she loves dandelion, she tried all parts of the dandelion to make a liqueur that works. Even though she liked the roasted dandelion root the best because its light caramel flavor made it better than coffee, I didn’t taste anything aside from bitter and burnt. Hilary was really curious about my reaction to the horseradish, which was Lelaneia’s answer to spicy liqueur, because Claire had changed the recipe to include more fresh root than last time. I had remembered that the last time the horseradish had a very sweet taste to it, this time there was a definite burn, cleared nasal passages, and the start of tears. I still really enjoyed it, as it would be perfect in a Bloody Mary. Unfortunately, the fresh sage liqueur was so good that I had to rank that above the horseradish. So my only hope is that Lelaneia relents and launches four flavors in the Wild Botanics line! Otherwise, I’ll have to use the Spicy XIII from the local distillery near the airport to kick up my Bloody Marys…

Wild Moon - The Specialty Liqueurs

The extension of the current Wild Moon line isn’t really a priority for Lelaneia, which is a shame because all three flavors were excellent. The almond was a little hard to taste after horseradish, but it was very good. The company had been working its almond flavor for 2 1/2 years because people have asked for almond for quite some time. While Lelaneia loves the flavor of almonds, she isn’t sure if this current incarnation is perfection or whether she will even continue to pursue perfecting an almond liqueur. Personally, I hope she does as I really like the almond flavor as well and would prefer to use something unique from a local company rather than the standard amaretto. Unfortunately, Lelania failed at making a peach liqueur after five years of trying because it wasn’t possible to balance the flavor of the juice and the alcohol; it was a Catch-22 where she needed a lot of alcohol to pull out the flavor from the peaches but the end result turned out to be too alcoholic. The grapefruit liqueur was also very good, although I was happy that Lelaneia described it more as a candied grapefruit peel liqueur made from both the rind and fruit because it tasted more sweet than hallmark tart to me. But if candied grapefruit was shat she was going for, she nailed it! The cherry was still my absolute favorite of the new possibilities for the Wild Moon line. The best batch that they made left the pits in the cherries to add some base notes to the liqueur.

I found it fascinating that Lelaneia talked more about the flavors that were in development this time. Among the flavors on the R&D shelf are a cedar, a juniper and a pine, which might all be combined into an evergreen forest liqueur. Since I love the juniper flavors of good gin, I’m hopeful that juniper is launched as a stand alone flavor. She may release a spiced pumpkin as a limited batch next fall. However, the one this Lelaneia won’t do is launch a ginger liqueur because there is already a really good one out there. Even though she doesn’t think it is as good as her ginger liqueur, the currently available liqueur is too close to be worth the effort.

The Verdict

Despite the same roster of flavors and terrible night to be driving into the Capitol, I was glad that I turned out for the most recent tasting panel. My table was as fun as always, and it was probably better for me to get out and socialize than stay in to binge watch the Great British Baking Show on Netflix. I’m hopeful that my favorite flavors get launched next spring - even though my liquor cabinet has almost no room for growth! However, Lelaneia assured us that if our favorite flavors don’t make it out in the spring, they are on the short list to come out later. Of course, being me, I did take the opportunity to talk with Lelaneia on my way to ask about the potential for a launch party when the liqueurs are ready to go to market. I stopped short of asking if I could be invited, but I’ll work on that later!