{"id":4749,"date":"2017-07-23T20:26:14","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T01:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/?p=4749"},"modified":"2017-07-23T20:34:34","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T01:34:34","slug":"delicious-event-tour-fruit-brandy-cocktails-at-rhine-hall-distillery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/23\/delicious-event-tour-fruit-brandy-cocktails-at-rhine-hall-distillery\/","title":{"rendered":"Delicious Event: Tour & fruit brandy cocktails at Rhine Hall Distillery"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pear
Liquid Diet cocktail with pear brandy, muddled arugula, lemon, simple syrup, and black pepper bitters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’d been curious about Rhine Hall’s apple brandy ever since I read about the family-owned distillery opening a few years ago, so it was an easy sell to book a tour of the facility through Groupon. I was surprised to learn that each bottle is made from a single ingredient: 25 (or so) pounds of fruit. Nothing else is added during the distillation process so that the brandy retains the fruit’s aroma and flavor. There were 11 varieties on offer during my visit: apple, oak-aged apple, grappa, oak-aged grappa, plum, oak-aged plum, mango, peach, pear, cherry, and bierschnaps.<\/p>\n

Before starting the tour, I tried one of the seasonal cocktails meant to showcase all the different fruit flavors. This one combined the pear brandy with lemon, arugula, and black pepper bitters to a brilliant result. It was so fresh and herbaceous, and the pear flavor shone through as the sweet note in an otherwise savory cocktail.<\/p>\n

\"Holstein
The Holstein copper pot still where all of Rhine Hall’s brandy is distilled<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was interesting to hear about the full spirit lifecycle: each kind of fruit is delivered in mass quantities from local farms, then pulverized using an industrial chopper. The fruit pulp is then fermented over a multi-month period before it can be distilled, rested, and finally bottled. I could tell that the tight-knit Rhine Hall team is passionate about what they do, and enjoys experimenting to reach the best-possible final product.<\/p>\n

After the tour, I tried a different cocktail; this time, plum brandy was paired with lavender, honey, and lots of lemon. I still can’t decide which cocktail I preferred, but they both illustrated how versatile (and tasty) fruit brandy can be.<\/p>\n

\"Plum
Golden Afternoon cocktail with plum brandy, honey lavender syrup, and lemon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The details:<\/strong> Rhine Hall Distillery<\/a>, 2010 W. Fulton St., Chicago.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I’d been curious about Rhine Hall’s apple brandy ever since I read about the family-owned distillery opening a few years ago, so it was an easy sell to book a tour of the facility through Groupon. I was surprised to learn that each bottle is made from a single ingredient: 25 (or so) pounds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2180,269,2186,2185,2187,2181,2182,2183,2184],"class_list":["post-4749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-delicious-events","tag-apple-brandy","tag-chicago","tag-distillery-tour","tag-family-business","tag-holstein-copper-pot-still","tag-pear-brandy","tag-plum-brandy","tag-rhine-hall","tag-rhine-hall-distillery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4749"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4756,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4749\/revisions\/4756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillaryproctor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}