Brad Distills 80 Proof Alcohol (Sotol) | It's Alive: Goin' Places | Bon Appétit

I'm just a fair and strange boy as I travel in this world of war, but there is no disease. Hey guys, today we are in central Texas, in the mountain region, we connect with the Desert Door distillery and we are

goin

g to harvest. some

sotol

plant to make

sotol

liqueurs let's go out and start harvesting some plants they show you how they do it come back and distill it and show you the products so uh put the oh backwards you go oh that's what it means uh all right , jordan joins me from the desert gate here it is uh ken coburn ken thanks for joining us thanks for watching and uh behind us we have some pretty interesting plants here do you want to tell me what I'm about to get involved in here yeah we're

goin

g to do the first one process of making sotol um, what is harvesting so sodal uh, I just saw it, where is the soda so high?

Sorry, right behind us here, so just taking a look at this plant, um, you know it looks like a uh, it's loaded with all kinds of booby traps. You want to show me the right way to handle this bad boy. Yeah, right, let's put on the gloves, so let's grab, oh, grab a handful of leaves like this. Okay, aim. not in your hand cut the leaves off and start plucking them off give it a haircut just keep doing that until we get to the base of the plant there you go before we cut everything off before we cut all this off let's take a look This, I mean, this thing has all kinds of spikes, uh, without the gloves, I guess this would cut your hand like hell, yeah, it leaves a pretty nasty mark on your skin, all right, so let's use a crowbar to Get it out of there, okay, let me finish the haircut if you want to grab the old lever, I can't do it right, okay, I'm trying to get under it so I'm just going to wiggle, wiggle, pop, oh wiggle. pop, that's right, let me do it for you, you know, go ahead, try it, honestly, I didn't expect it to be as easy as you made it, I have good peaches, ken, cool, okay, there you go, uh, watch out for any centipedes yeah and centipedes yeah we have to be careful with those now he tells me now you'll see squirty scorpions uh scorpion centipedes tarantulas um that's got all the good stuff yeah but it looks like we're clear for this one yeah so that's the root system we're talking about wow, nice wood, uh, pretty tough plant, very fibrous, I mean, I guess you'd have to be pretty tough to live here for 100 years, uh, absolutely gosh, and this is what we're looking for, that. it's what's in all those sugars that we want to break down and ferment, oh, not really the big starchy fiber, oh, it almost reminds me a little bit of an artichoke petal, so it's in the artichoke family, look at me, yeah. so this we pulled out of the top of this atoll plant, look honestly, it's got some awesome looking shine and texture, it's the plant, this little petal is edible, uh, I'm sure it's you, I'm sure It's very convincing, you know?

I'm going to try it, you do it first, that's not so bad huh, so bad, something like this weighs about 10 to 15 pounds or so, how much of a bottle would this fill? I mean, I guess it's a tough question, yeah, so it depends on the size and weight, but this one here will probably yield about a bottle or something like that of finished product. Oh wow, that's a pretty good performance for these bad boys. It's absolutely great, we'll load this on the truck and maybe harvest a few more. and then go back to the distillery and put me to work there, huh, sounds good, sounds like a plan, okay, ken

brad

, you want to drive the truck absolutely five speed, four, four, four speed, huh, oh, rock and roll , old, American, four, oh yeah. little bank, yeah, yeah, can't find them grinding, Benny, no, I would never agree with whoever owns this truck.

I never grew up with a five-speed, four-speed, same thing what year this thing is. 77 wow, yeah, this is fun, this is some work. Always do it, uh, Minnie in the van, oh, oh, oh, oh, no cameras, buddy, I'm in the truck, okay, no minivan, school, get in the van. The fun games are over, Benny, okay, this is, uh, this is the first step is to take the plants. We harvest them and load them in the baskets from there they go to cook oh yes, this is that big boy, look at that thing, it's two bottles, easy, that smell is quite nice, right?

Oh, here's the problem. I'm still proud of this one yeah trim job uh guys oh all these got going too surprise what centipede you don't mean no I don't want to see any centipedes. I'm coming in hot, yeah, look at that, huh? Is this like a giant pressure cooker? That's how it is and at what temperature we are cooking. We are cooking it at 100 degrees Celsius. What is that in Fahrenheit? It's 212 degrees. Oh, boiling. Yes, we're going to introduce some steam. That is how. we cook, remember we're talking about breaking down those complex sugar structures, yes, and we do it by using steam to break those bonds, okay, and yes, that's why it's here great, how long does it last?

Approximately three days. I'll let it cook and then what's the next step in the process? The next step is to press, so take out these baskets, yes they will be a tobacco type color, bring them up to the press, turn it on and start pushing. The plants in there are fine, cold and all, and then, as if the pulp or the excess discarded juice comes out another yes, that's right, these zip ties here prevent it from coming out, yes, shouldn't I be standing here? You'll be fine, Jesus. God okay no one got hurt yeah a little pop there you go and we're going to move this railing to the front yeah we are so we remove all those plants and fill this thing up here what's next passed?

Well, next one. The step is to pump this into the fermentation tank. Okay, now we have our sotol juice here. The yeast is added to the tank, where it then gets to work converting those sugars into

alcohol

. The last thing we do is verify.

alcohol

abv, how much alcohol has actually been produced during that time and once that's recorded, we'll go ahead and pump it into the still, so that's really what we're looking for is the alcohol that's what's produced. I take off my gloves, yes, you could. remove them, I'm just doing lemon here, okay, that sounds good, so we have our ferment that's inside the kettle, we're going to bring it up to temperature and as that temperature increases, you're refluxing because it converts the drop of steam.

It goes back to the liquid and that's like a cleaning process, yeah, so essentially you're trying to get the purer alcohol through the top, so once you get your pure alcohol, it goes down, there's another column, what is happening? there, this will be the condenser, it's filled with cold water, when it hits the cold water, it turns liquid and that's what we're capturing here on the awesome side, after one run we'll collect all of our spirit, uh, our distillate inside, here, um, we. We'll test it again, make sure we know that at this given volume it's goes and that's, close it, so based on that hydrometer it says it's around 90, yeah, before you cut it or what would you test it deeper?

Would you say it proves perfect? um so this is working he said about 90 alcohol so that's what that translates to 180

proof

that's right high octane high oxygen okay guys take a little bite. I'm definitely going to smell it first, yes, I would do well, it's actually quite pretty, well, I don't want to say calm, but kind. of t, it's not like it burns your nose, that's actually quite mild, it's gentle on the nose, obviously, yes, what comes through the plant, so not all sugars become fermentable sugars , and we feel like the juice is so high. that's inside the teapot, for that to come across, it's amazing how it still has that kind of sweet vegetable even after all that crazy process.

Yeah, you know, I've smelled some very high

proof

alcohols before and it doesn't smell. As nice as this is, you know, we are very proud of it, yes, it is a fascinating planting process that you are carrying out here. I'm going to take a little bite, I guess I have to. Yeah, oh, that was a pretty unique experience. the mouth there I feel like it almost evaporated before I swallowed it that's 90 or 90 so yeah sure highly flammable yeah it's actually pretty good okay slow down but yeah sure we don't want to drink too much I mean this.

It's pretty impressive, but I'd love to, can we jump in and try some of the final products tested by your guys? Absolutely yes, let's go to the tasting room, yes, let's do it, yes, this is our 80 proof so high that it hasn't been barrel aged. Okay, so this is either fresh off the still or proof reduced to about 40 percent. I love these little ones, what are they called? They are called cups. Okay, traditional way of drinking. So tall. Oh beautiful, I love you. Yeah come on. Yeah, let me smell it right off the bat, yeah, again, it has that kind of sweetness to it and, you know, almost, I don't want to say buttery, but it has a smoothness to it, you know, wow, for a rape, it's very different. the mouth that what we were tasting directly from the salt before we tasted it what are some of the flavors that you get from this I have mint eucalyptus um buttery like almost almost butter do you like it yeah, of course, of course, and very vegetal, right and that comes of the plant, you know, we saw where we harvested this plant and we were on, you know, rocky soil and it was, it must be a product of that too, that kind of terra terroir, now you say terraria, yeah, we'll leave it. you say that and you said this alone, this really only grows in Texas and northern Mexico, yes it also extends to Arizona, New Mexico, okay, but northern Mexico is beautiful, so I realized that here you have a bunch of barrels, you said you're getting older, you put a little bit of this in those barrels and how long do you let it sit, you sit for about nine months.

I love blue or what do we call this color? I'm going to say yes, cobalt blue, maybe yes. I'm going to get into that, oh, cheers, cheers, oh, that's good, it's pretty simple, yeah, and we're very proud of what we've done here with these two and it's very, very simple, it just takes me to a real happy place, you know it's winter, it's very cold at home, it's okay, I'm just going to close my eyes, I see a fireplace crackling, I don't have a dog, but the dog is lying by the fire, it's okay, I'm sitting there for real . cozy chair just nibbling on this and after 10 minutes or so I might even fall asleep a little bit, you know?

But it's not like that either, it's not slow, you know, it's like they call it spirit for a reason I always say. You know, it cheers you up a bit, very different even from wine or beer, um, maybe it's just the percentage of alcohol, but hey, hello, thanks again, yes, welcome, that wind is a problem, it takes two jubilees, Vinnie, oh sweet. Mary, I almost lost you once today, baby, I'm not going to try to do that again, right, God, six, the cowboy hat must hate it anyway, okay guys, I hope you learned as much about it as I did. soto, learning about that plant and without seeing it, nothing about it. shouts, hey, pick me, eat me, ferment me, turn me into a drink.

It was the first time I had sotol and I was surprised by the complexity and depth of flavor it had. It had these beautiful flavors of eucalyptus, mint and soft vegetables. you get a product that is distinctive from this region, there is something special about that, well thanks again to the people at Desert Door Distillery for showing me how they make Sodal. I hope you had fun check it out try to get some and uh you guys. I know, bon appetit, uh, so high, damn, I was saying so high, okay, hey guys, today we're here in central Texas, high in the mountain country and uh, we connect with the desert, right?

Should I say hooked, hey guys, today? we're in the west, take three Hey guys, we're here today and oh no, not today, sorry, I'm thinking too much about this. Hey guys, today we are here in central Texas, in the mountainous area. We just mean connected.