In a first-of-its-kind collab among Maryland booze makers, Medfield-based Baltimore Spirits Company and Frederick’s McClintock Distilling have traded grains to produce a unique pair of gins.
The key piece of the exchange was the mash, a blend of grains used in distilling that converts starches into more easily fermented sugars.
Both companies used each other’s rye mash–Baltimore Spirits Company borrowed the blend from McClintock’s Bootjack Rye Whiskey, and McClintock took some of the mash used in BSC’s popular Epoch Rye–and then added their own botanicals. The batches were left to ferment in steel tanks beginning in the spring.
The end products are two distinctly different Genever-style liquors–maltier than your typical dry gin, but with botanical notes to give it a similar taste–that relied on “spicier” and “more peppery” grain blends than the traditional process for the spirit.
Braeden Bumpers, owner of the six-year-old Frederick distillery, said in an interview that he’s tasted various “old world-style” Genevers made with milder malted barley mashes, but never something quite like this.
“This was kind of our way to put a Maryland twist on it,” he said.
Only a few hundred bottles will be produced. The first half of the batch will be released at both McClintock and BSC headquarters this Saturday. The other portion will be aged in rye whiskey barrels and released at a later date.
BSC’s batch is part of its experimental Singularities line, while McClintock’s is the first its new Innovation series.
