Sneak Peek: O’Shaughnessy Distillery – Mpls.St.Paul Magazine

The O’Shaughnessy Distillery is almost completely ready for its closeup. Sitting nicely in the Prospect Park community, kissing patios with Surly Brewing and gazing over at Malcolm Yards from its fermenting tanks, it is like a party completely ready to pop. It has arrive so significantly because I very first visited in February. 

But like all the things proper now, there is a bit of a pause with some allowing challenges and source chain hiccups. The group is inclined, the whiskey is waiting around, but we’ll probable have to maintain right up until August right up until all issues align and you are sitting at the Potato Bar sipping a radicchio lilted cocktail handed to you by Pip Hanson. Oh, but it is coming. 

Head distiller Brian Nation and his crew know that they are generating a little something genuinely specific below, the 3 pot distillation technique that is customarily employed to make Irish whiskey will be producing American whiskey designed with Northern ingredients. Training about their mission and their targets is pretty crucial to them, so they have developed the distillery with excursions in mind. The media got a very little taste of the tour, and a very little taste at the end of the tour, and I have to say, even if you know about how whiskey is produced, it is worthy of it to hear their eyesight (and see the tanks up shut). 

You may begin in the keep, where there is plenty of branded merch and bottles of their very first blended whiskey, Keeper’s Coronary heart, will be out there to invest in. It will be the very first of several amazing copper lights installations you may see. 

Heading into the production spot, you may discover about the grains they use and the fermentation course of action. Those tanks have the ideal check out of any distillery I’ve been to, how is any individual going to get any perform finished?

Then you may get up shut and personal with those copper pot stills. As a whiskey nerd, I enjoy them. No two pot stills are specifically the exact same and their shape and nuances are section of what provides the distillate its character. Nation instructed us about how he believes this is a complete new genre of whiskey, what they are going to be producing below. Make positive you understand about the head, the heart, and the tail.

You may go as a result of, subsequent the liquid’s path as a result of the course of action. They are getting the possibility to genuinely instruct any individual who wants to understand about oak, and char, and what the getting old course of action will do for the bottled merchandise. If you have ever been on a Napa winery tour, this all will feel acquainted. 

Your tour will end in the tasting room, as it really should. They have got a nice major desk in a room called The Hold. We ran as a result of the parts that go into their Keeper’s Coronary heart bottles, discussing the mixing and tasting every single factor ahead of receiving to the composite. It really is correct that as a new whiskey distillery, they won’t have their possess spirit completely ready for a couple of many years, that is the mother nature of whiskey: time and wood. But they are bringing in other variously crafted whiskeys and mixing them to produce a flavor that arrives shut to what they want O’Shaughnessy to be regarded for. 

Eventually, to the bar. Just after comprehending what goes into every single bottle, it is time to cheer on what arrives out of every single bottle. The bar set up in the primary room is equal to the 3 pot stills it is facing. Hanson and his crew are operating on cocktails that can be produced promptly and effectively. 

As you may possibly know, for a distillery, the Minnesota beverage laws won’t enable other spirits to be employed on web site. They are not able to carry in Campari to make a negroni, so they have to determine out a way to produce the flavors they want without the brand names they may possibly be employed to. Hanson’s the guy for the job: a single of the aperitifs we tried using employed radicchio as a flavoring agent to carry about that wanted bitterness. Yes, the Aged Fashioned is pretty superior. 

There are plenty of places to obtain in this building, the upstairs Potato Bar will probable be booked for non-public functions, but will also be open up for common seating. There is not a window in the area with a poor check out. It really is a equilibrium of mild and brick and leather-based and wood. 

You can find an outside deck off this room that seems proper into the Surly patio. Presently less than building, O’Shaughnessy will also have an outside container bar in the back again. There is a full kitchen on web site, and the menu is also now less than building. 

You can find a little street to go for this new distillery, but the O’Shaughnessy relatives has produced the financial commitment in individuals, room, and time for it to be a little something significant. August is not that significantly off. Keep tuned.