The New Letherbee Spirit Is Like Autumn In A Glass

By Anthony Todd in Food on Oct 5, 2015 6:56PM

The new Autumnal gin from Letherbee.

Letherbee Distillery makes one of the best gins in town all year round, but every spring and fall I anxiously wait for their seasonal releases. Twice a year they come, a Letherbee Vernal (spring) and a Letherbee Autumnal (fall). This year's autumnal gin, which sounds like the perfect fall quaff, will be released Tuesday.

According to distiller Brent Engel, this season's gin was inspired by a fabulous maple syrup. A friend of Engel's from Portland, Oregon distributes the syrup, and it got Engel thinking about how to incorporate maple into their fall release. They added some of the syrup straight to the spirit, and also tried to get the flavor of maple wood in it as well. "We oven-roasted sugar maple wood chips, that are steeped in the gin pre-and-post distillation. That gives the gin a little more body, tannin," Engel says. "Whenever you roast sugar maple wood chips in the oven, it smells just like maple syrup."

A selection of past Letherbee seasonals. Photo by Anthony Todd.

They also had a barrel of gin sitting around that had been aging for 33 months in an old Buffalo Trace Bourbon barrel. They blended some of it in, and that's where the finished product gets its light brown coloring. They also added some allspice during the distillation process, which added an extra touch of the holiday season.

"After so many of these, I feel like we’re getting better all the time," said Engel of the seasonal releases.

The new gin will available Tuesday night at a party at the OSB at Longman & Eagle, from 6 to 9 p.m. Bottles will be available for purchase, and after that, you'll be able to find it at spirits retailers all over the city.