Carrots In A Bottle: Root Vegetable Spirit Makes Excellent Earthy Cocktails

Moonshiners and prison dwellers will tell you (in confidence) that you can successfully make booze from just about anything. But how will it taste?

Boardroom Spirits, a distillery in Lansdale, Pa., recently (and legally) started making a carrot eau de vie called C Spirit, following the success of B Spirit, its liquor distilled entirely from beets. Distilled from 100 percent carrots (over 12 pounds per 375-milliliter bottle), C tastes thoroughly of the sweet, earthy vegetable, overlaid with natural aromas of fennel and fruit, and, like typical eaux de vie, pours at a high (92) proof. The family-owned micro-distillery produces several farm-to-bottle spirits, including gin, rum and a line of brightly flavored vodkas infused with fresh produce like cranberries and ginger.

Marat Mamedov, one of the founders of Boardroom, says the reason they started fiddling with vegetable-based distillates was as a unique twist on the traditions of his Armenian heritage and his wife, Zsuzsa Palotas', Hungarian roots (no pun intended.) Armenians love fruit brandies, and palinka is a well-known Hungarian liquor double distilled from stone fruit. Mamedov says the process "is technically challenging when you use vegetables instead of fruits," due to the enzymes required for proper distillation and fermentation, plus the different cell structures presented by carrots vs. plums vs. grain mash.

To read more about this unique carrot spirit, head over to The Chicago Tribune.