Farmers and Distillers in DC
‘I’ll have a What About Bob?’ my wife says, eyeing the cocktail list at Farmers and Distillers, a combination restaurant-bar-distillery in Washington DC.
I’ve no idea who Bob is, but its combination of the house vodka, lime, ginger, cinnamon and orgeat syrup sounds good and looks creamily tasty with its multi-coloured top.
I don’t care what I have as long as it’s warming as we’d walked to Farmers and Distillers in a monumental rainstorm which, even with umbrellas, left us soaking and definitely in need of a drink.
A Smoky Cocktail
In the end I choose a Smoky Cocktail, partly because it indulges my newly-discovered love of mezcal, and partly because the drink also includes two of the distillery’s own products: American whiskey and an amaro. Mix in some ruby port, some curacao and garnish with a piece of smoked rosemary and you have a drink of smoky wonder that looks terrific, smells like a boozy bonfire and after one sip I already know I want another.
The restaurant buzzes with the conversations of people happy that they’re not out in the rain. We’re comfy in one of the diner-style booths and though it’s a dark day outside, inside it’s cheerily bright with numerous lamps hanging down from the white ceiling with its exposed pipework and industrial-chic look.
KNOW YOUR BAKER a sign on one wall says, and the menu reinforces the policy of knowing where your food is sourced. I discover later on a distillery tour that the restaurant is co-owned by the North Dakota Farmers’ Union, which has 47,500 members.
I decide it’s the kind of day for some comfort food and order steak frites, knowing that the steak comes either from the Roseda Black Angus Farm in nearby Maryland or from Seven Hills down the road in Virginia. Whoever supplied it can be satisfied in knowing how much I enjoyed its meaty tenderness, while the chips were so good I had to stop my wife from stealing them.
Quite how she was able to eat any I don’t know, as her lobster pot pie presumably got its name because it was as big as a lobster pot, its shiny golden puff pastry top tempting you to sink your teeth into it. Inside was all the buttery lobster richness you could wish for. I know because I demanded a bite in return for my sacrificed chips. Her dish came with peas and sweet potatoes while my own steak frites was served with a gigantic roasted tomato topped with cheese and herbs.
Works of Art
Our cocktails were certainly works of art, and artworks are everywhere you look in the restaurant. There are so many you can even request an art tour, though I was headed for the tiny on-site distillery to one side of the restaurant. My guide was the enthusiastic and delightfully-named Autumn Henderson.
‘DC is having a big surge in distilling,’ she said, ‘and we were the first to be up and running.’
The distilling side of the operation is called Founding Spirits, and at first the company collaborated with distiller Rick Wasman at the Copper Fox Distillery in Sperryville, Virginia.
‘The first thing we did,’ Autumn says, ‘was Founding Spirits Rye Whiskey, and then we collaborated with Rick on Founding Spirits Gin, using rye and barley. We’re obsessed with doing everything ourselves. The first we did on our own was a vodka. The red spring wheat from North Dakota has an incredibly sweet flavor.’
Tasting Session
Autumn proves it by giving me a tasting of their vodka, which does have a clean and slightly sweet vanilla taste to it. They do their distilling at Copper Fox, then they bring their distillate to the restaurant for further distilling for 45-60 hours.
‘We only use the hearts,’ Autumn explains. ‘We bottle everything here, with a machine that does just four bottles at a time. It’s a tiny operation!’
I’m intrigued by their amaro, which few people in the USA make.
‘That’s 32 spices marinated into the vodka for a month or so,’ Autumn tells me. ‘After the maceration we chip-age it in small barrels for four months, and the flavors come together. We sweeten it with some molasses and local honey. We fund an apiary on top of George Washington University.
‘The amaro has a bitter-sweet taste. We like to be different. DC is more open to new things than many places because of its international population.
‘We do a whiskey as well. It’s an American whiskey, not a bourbon, as we use seasoned US oak barrels not new barrels. This is 100-proof: we don’t play games here! We can’t legally call it bourbon because of the barrels but that’s what it tastes like.
‘Our gin is a genever-style gin made from 100% malted barley, so it’s a single-malt gin. It’s not so focused on juniper.’
As with my visit to another Washington distillery, District Distilling, I found the spirits to be excitingly different, and as creative as any being made elsewhere in the USA. I also discovered, finally, who Bob was. Bob VanLancker is the Distillery Manager. I’ll drink to that.
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