Black Button Distilling — Lilac Gin

  
BLACK BUTTON DISTILLING
ROCHESTER, N.Y.
Rochester, New York-based Black Button Distilling, which produces Corn Whiskey, Citrus Forward Gin, Vodka and Four Grain Bourbon variants, is also set to release a limited edition Lilac Gin (84 proof) to select liquor stores on May 1, packaged in 375-ml. bottles.

I took this news entirely from Good Spirits News, which cites Shanken News Daily.

I’ll be in Rochester this weekend for the Rochester Cocktail Revival. And I hope there’s time to visit the Black Button Distillery.

From Black Button’s website:

A tribute to the rich botanical heritage of “The Flower City” and home of the annual Rochester Lilac Festival, Black Button’s Lilac Gin is made with hand picked fresh lilac petals and complimentary botanicals.

“As a local company, we are always looking for ways to celebrate Rochester’s unique heritage,” said Jason Barrett, Rochester native and Black Button Distilling owner/head distiller. “The flowers of the Lilac Festival are a major part of our city’s identity. The ability to use local ingredients and showcase them in our own way is exactly what Black Button is all about,” he said.

Things To Drink In 2015

I’m a sucker for gimmicks and I have a tendency to get over eager about new products and flavors and quirky packaging among other things. What can I say, I’m an easy mark.

All that aside though, there are a number of new boozes to be released this year which I’m going to make it a point to try.

There were surely new things I tried in 2014, but there was also a whole lot I missed out on — such as Angostura’s new amaro and that Canadian Club rye which was only released in Canada.

There were plenty of others for sure, but those are just the first two which came to mind. But enough about the past, I’ve got my eyes set on tasting these following bottles in the near future — and by all accounts, they’re surely more attainable goals. At least, I won’t have to travel to Canada to taste any of them!

•WOODFORD RESERVE RYE•

I love Woodford Reserve. And I love rye! So this news about the new Woodford Reserve Rye really set me off. Truthfully, I’d heard a little bit about it some months back when I was at a competition in Pittsburgh, but the January announcement of the new product means it should soon be on store shelves.

Woodford’s rye will be$38 for a 750-ml. and will initially launch in 15 U.S. markets. The rye will be 45.2% abv and will be the third permanent extension in the company’s Portfolio.

•JIM BEAM RYE & BONDED BOURBON•
Jim Beam has two new boozes about to be released, a rye and a bonded bourbon.

The rye is a relaunch, reformulating the brand’s Jim Beam Rye as Jim Beam Pre-Prohibition Style Rye. The rye will be 90-proof and will offer “a bolder, spicier taste profile,”according to the company.

Jim Beam Pre-Prohibition Style Rye will cost around $23 for a 750-ml.

Similarly priced, Jim Beam Bonded will be a 100-proof Bourbon aged four years, and made in accordance with the “Bottled in Bond Act” of 1897.

Jim Beam Bonded will be produced in a single distillery season at a single distillery and is said to to feature spicy oak notes with a background of vanilla and caramel.

What is “Bonded” booze?

The phrase “Bottled In Bond” is something I saw on several bottles of liquor for a long time before I finally went and looked up exactly what it meant.

As with so much else in the realm of whisk(e)y, “Bonded” booze is simply a set of requirements which a producer must follow in order to earn the term.

Bonded booze must come from a single producer in single season at a single distillery. It must be aged in a Federally-bonded warehouse and it must be bottled at 100 proof. There’s more to it than that though, so give the phrase a Google and read on:

•History of the Bottled-in-Bond Act•

One purpose of the Bottled-in-Bond Act was to create a standard of quality for Bourbon whiskey. Prior to the Act’s passage, much of the whiskey sold as straight whiskey was anything but. So much of it was adulterated out of greed — flavored and colored with iodine, tobacco, and other substances — that some perceived a need for verifiable quality assurance.

The practice was also connected to tax law, which provided the primary incentive for distilleries to participate. Distilleries were allowed to delay payment of the excise tax on the stored whiskey until the aging of the whiskey was completed (and the supervision of the warehouse ensured proper accounting and the eventual collection of the tax).

This combination of advantages led a group of whiskey distillers, led by Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr. (creator of Old Taylor bourbon), joined with then Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle to fight for the Bottled-in-Bond Act. To ensure compliance, Treasury agents were assigned to control access to so-called bonded warehouses at the distilleries.

•SVEDKA 100 & GRAPEFRUIT JALAPENO•
It seems like there’s barely a week that goes by without some new flavored being launched by one brand or another. That said, Svedka piqued my interest with the announcement of its new grapefruit jalapeno flavor — which will cost $12.99 for a 750 ml. The flavor is intended to capitalize on consumer interest in fusing sweet and spicy flavors.

The company is also launching a new 100-proof variant, which will cost around $15.35 a 750-ml.

Shanken Daily News and Good Spirits News are where I first saw these new boozes reported, and they’re where I took all the above info for this post. The images came from a Google images search.