What I’m Drinking: The Straw Track

As I detailed a few ticks of the Spiked Punch blog ago (and in the swell Seattle Magazine), Seattle and WA are in the midst of a distillery boom of sorts, and I couldn’t be happier. All this fantastic local booze to sip and shake and sip some more? Great with me. One of the newer distilleries that I was a little slow to track down is the Sidetrack distillery, in Kent, WA, outside of the city of Seattle (I mention this mostly to give myself an excuse for the tardy tasting, not out of any geographical bias). Sidetrack is situated right on the Lazy River Farm and makes an assortment of liqueurs and fruit brandies with fruit grown on the farm–now that’s using local ingredients. This focus on fresh and homegrown fruit lends the liqueurs (full disclosure: I haven’t had the brandies, but am excited to try them. Second disclosure: I was given samples of the liqueurs) a bright, clear fruit taste backed by a smooth slight sweetness. There are four varieties: blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, and strawberry. I went with the strawberry here in the Straw Track cocktail, because it seemed to yell “summer” the most to me, and as it’s mid-February I needed a jolly jolt of summer. I think, though, that this drink is balanced enough, and bubbly enough, to have year round.

Cracked ice

1-1/2 ounces gin (I would stick with the WA theme and use Voyager if you can get it)

1/2 ounce Sidetrack Strawberry liqueur

Chilled brut Champagne or sparkling wine

Lemon slice, for garnish

1. Fill a cocktail shaker or mixing glass halfway full with cracked ice. Add the gin and liqueur. Stir well.

2. Strain into a flute or other charming glass. Top with chilled bubbly and garnish with that lemon slice.

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EvenStar Shochu and the Venus in Voiron Cocktail

Here’s something that’ll add a little kick to your holiday season–Seattle has another local spirit now available for public consumption. After the various distillery articles, it’s probably not surprising that there are more new spirits, but what’s surprising is that this one probably isn’t going to ring any bells (or not many). It’s a shōchū, a Japanese-origin spirit, one that often goes through a single distilling, usually made from barley (though other options abound), and usually with a lesser alcohol content as well as with less calories than say, vodka and various health benefits (or so the legends go). There are some other rules and such, but I’m starting to digress too far afield. The main point is that the Sodo Spirits distillery here in Seattle (lucky us) is making and marketing a shōchū called EvenStar.

If you’ve never had shōchū, or shochu, then you aren’t alone. I hadn’t tried it but once, until recently experimenting with the EvenStar. It was light on its feet as you might expect, with a hint of rosemary and grain and a tiny herbal undertone. The suggested drinking modes cover the gamut from neat, warm (like some sake is consumed), over ice, and mixed in cocktails. The friendly folks at the Sodo Spirits have some cocktail suggestions on their site and some that come along with the EvenStar (by the way, they were nice enough to send me a bottle) but many of the drinks were using it alongside other base spirits, and to me it seemed to have enough taste to stand as a base spirit, if that makes sense. So, I did what comes naturally to any cocktail-loving cocktail lover; I started experimenting on my own.

I thought that the EvenStar’s hints of herbalness and rosemary might match up with other herb-ish mixtures, and I was right–it matched up well with French liqueur Chartreuse, especially the green version, as well as with the earth mother of bitters, Peychaud’s. After I had those two other ingredients, I just needed to balance everything out a bit, the low and the high, the herbal and the sweet, the gossip and the facts, and a little fresh orange juice did the trick right. The end result is a cocktail worthy of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, as it’s light, won’t weigh you down, and has a lovely glow. I suggest trotting down to your local liquor store (if in the Seattle area) and picking up some EvenStar and taking Venus out for a spin this winter. Or, try it in other mixes and let me know what you come up with, because I’m always open to other ideas. And if you don’t live here (well, first–why not?), then come for a visit, because our local distillers are making Seattle an even finer place to reside within.

The Venus in Voiron Cocktail

Ice cubes

2 ounces EvenStar shochu

3/4 ounce green Chartreuse

1/4 ounce freshly squeezed orange juice

Dash Peychaud’s bitters

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the shochu, Chartreuse, orange juice, and bitters.

2. Strain the mix through a fine strainer into a cocktail glass. Drink looking east, and then drink looking west.

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Getting High Spirited with Local Distilleries and Seattle Magazine

Even if you don’t live in Seattle, the general Seattle area, in the western part of Washington State, Washington State, the Pacific Northwest, or even the United States, if you like good liquors and liqueurs and cocktails then you’ll probably want to read my Seattle Magazine article on the host of new local-ish distilleries. I don’t want to say too much (cause when you go read it, you’re going to get a lot of me anyway), but A: though it’s good online, pick up a real, in-your-hands, copy of the issue if you can because the layout and photos and such are fantastic in mag form (even more than the online version, which is also awesome), and B: reading through the article again makes me even happier to live out here. Thanks to all the distillers for talking to me and taking me around, it was one tasty article to write. Oh, also, I have an accompanying article about 12 specific new Seattle bottles-of-booze I thought were worth sipping—ones tasted while writing (sometimes tasted for the 2nd or 32nd time) the main distillery article. You should check those out, and the new liquors and liqueurs coming out all the time, by golly. If you don’t live here, come on by to visit and then check ‘em out. We’ll be glad to see you.

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