They’re here! Short Mountain Mini Barrels available at the Still House Store Saturday Sept. 1

Make your own Barrel Charred Shine
Give your authentic Tennessee Moonshine the age of a fine Bourbon with our 2 liter Short Mountain Mini Barrels. Each new charred White Oak barrel fits two 750ml bottles of spirit and can be used several times with proper care. Making “charred Shine” takes days as opposed to months or years in larger barrels.

Short Mountain Mini Barrels retail for $55 and will be available at Short Mountain Distillery starting Saturday September 1. They will be available online in October. Each mini barrel includes the barrel, bung, spout, stand, instructions and sanitizer.

Charred Shine can be enjoyed like a fine Bourbon as a drink or in food products such as: Charred Shine BBQ sauces, donut glazes, or flavoring in chilies, soups or baked sweet treats.

How To Use Short Mountain Mini Barrels

• Be sure spout is secure in the barrel. Remove bung, fill with warm water, close, wrap with a moist towel for a few hours. This will swell and seal the oak wood.
• Remove water. Select a fine unaged whiskey, like Short Mountain Shine! Pour into barrel and leave to age to preferred taste. Enjoy your charred Shine responsibly!

Proper care and tips:

• Keep barrel in alternating warm and cool environments to expand and contract spirits in and out of the oak.
• If storing barrel between uses, use enclosed sulfite tablet for at least a day before rinsing and reusing, especially if using well water. Dissolve pill in water, pour water into barrel and allow to sit for a day to sanitize if using well water. Do not allow barrel to dry out and crack. Wrap with moist towel to seal any external cracks.
• Remove bung when using spout to allow spirit to flow.

Short Mountain Distillery invites you to learn some of the basics about food and beverage fermentation from fermentation expert and author Sandor Katz! This workshop is one of the first in a series of food and beverage workshops we’ll host throughout the year.

WHAT: Basic food and beverage fermentation workshop with
COST: $15 ($40 if you’d like a copy of Kat’s latest book)
WHEN: July 14, 2012 – 9a.m. – 12p.m. (three hours)
WHERE: Short Mountain Distillery – 119 Mountain Spirits Ln., Woodbury, TN 37190
LIMIT: 15 people (contact John Whittemore to reserve a spot – 615-216-0830)

Katz was recently featured on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross talking about his latest and most comprehensive book on fermentation called The Art of Fermentation. In 2010, Katz was also recently featured in a five page spread in the New Yorker Magazine.

This basic fermentation workshop is a shortened version of Katz’s multi-day,  hands-on workshops he gives around the world. You’ll learn how some of your favorite foods are actually fermented and how you can prepare and store your own fermented foods such as cheese, beer, chocolate, tea, pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, salami, miso, tempeh, soy sauce, yogurt and much more.

Wanda Thompson and her son Aaron Thompson show off their cranberry-pecan Moonshine Cookies at The Blue Porch.

Some things are just meant to be, like Moonshine infused icing on a blue berry bread pudding. If that sounds amazing, wait until you take a bite of this and other tasty treats being whipped up in The Blue Porch at the Art Center of Cannon County.

Owners Wanda and Aaron Thompson have taken our authentic Tennessee Moonshine to a whole new level by baking it into cookies, soaking it into oatmeal cake and drizzling it in icing over two different types of bread pudding.

By the time I showed up to do some research yesterday, it looked like half of Cannon County had already decided the blue berry bread pudding is a hit. There was none left, and I could see why. It’s the one treat with the most distinguishable taste of Short Mountain Shine. You can taste it in the cookies if you know what to look for. Like with most baking, there isn’t any more alcohol in these than there would be cooking with extracts.

Short Mountain Distillery is a sponsor of the April 13-28 performance of Mitch Albom’s Duck Hunter Shoots Angel at the Arts Center. Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to stop by The Blue Porch and take home a genuine taste of Cannon County!

I’m certainly not the first person to infuse bacon into alcoholic beverages. A quick search led me to a number of very informative posts by fellow bacon lovers who all seem to use roughly the same process called “fat washing.” Here’s how Southern California mixologist Don Lee describes it.

The fat is actually what makes this infusion possible. Fat is non-polar, while drinking alcohol (40% abv) is mostly water and thus polar. This prevents the fat from being dissolved into the alcohol. The alcohol itself (ethanol), however is both polar and nonpolar, allowing water to be dissolved into itself as well fat soluble compounds. What this means is that flavorful compounds from the fat will transfer into the alcohol while keeping the fat itself separate. This, combined with the higher freezing point of fat v. low freezing point of alcohol makes it possible to solidify the fat in a standard freezer and easy to remove.

Lee uses 1 oz. of rendered bacon fat in a 750ml bottle of bourbon. It’s the same recipe Jacob Grier says PDT uses in New York. You may be confident that you won’t screw up a whole 750ml bottle of bourbon or moonshine. I’m not. So, here’s my recipe that should make at least six cocktails.

Bacon infused Moonshine and Bourbon:

• 4-6 strips of thick hickory smoked bacon
• 6 ounces of bourbon (I used Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon) or moonshine or both

Cook the bacon and collect a tablespoon of rendered bacon fat. Pour it into 6 ounces of bourbon or moonshine and let sit for two hours. This is probably a larger ratio of bacon to bourbon or moonshine than other recipes, but I love bacon. You can shove the bacon in your moonshine or your mouth or both. I did both.

After the bacon flavor has been taken by the spirit, pour into a plastic cup and place into the freezer until all the fat solidifies. This may take a few hours. Remove the fat, filter and serve neat or in cocktails that are complimented by a smokey (smokey maple bourbon) flavor.

Sheriff Robert Goodwin (left) of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department makes a moonshine bust September 30, 1950 in Murfreesboro, TN

We know our history, and we know you are a part of it. Short Mountain Distillery is looking for family stories and moonshine recipes to share with the world in a book to be published in conjunction with our grand opening.

One thing we learned from talking with our neighbors over the past year is that nearly everyone we know has an amazing story about a relative or friend who made moonshine. The secrets families once kept for generations by Tennesseans are treasured stories of a hidden craft that defines the ingenious American spirit in the face of trying times.

Maybe your grandmother made a special cough medicine or your uncle had the perfect mixed drink recipe. Maybe your family had a special plan that kept the revenuers at bay. No matter how long or short, we’re looking for everything from stories of survival and close calls to cherished memories of times gone by.

This 4th of July, declare your independence with a uniquely American white whiskey: moonshine!

For over 200 years, generations of American moonshine makers hid in the shadows from America’s Revolution through the end of Prohibition. American moonshine is the story of our nation’s persistence , determination and love of freedom. It’s America’s story, and it’s time for that story to shine!

Moonshine is an excellent alternative to vodka and gin in some mixed drinks.   Here are a couple to kick off your 4th of July right. Please shine responsibility!

4th of July
1.5 oz. Moonshine
0.5 oz. Triple Sec
0.5 oz. Sweet & Sour mix
0.5 oz. Blue Curacao
1 splash of Grenadine

Shake all ingredients except the Grenadine over ice and pour into a martini glass. Add the Grenadine slowly, allowing it to fall to the bottom.

Picnic
1 oz. watermelon schnapps
1 big splash cranberry juice
1 1/2 oz. Moonshine
1/4 oz. blue curacao
1/2 oz. simple syrup
watermelon cube

Mix watermelon schnapps and cranberry juice in a shaker and pour over ice. Mix the blue curacao and syrup and then slowly pour over the red layer. Garnish with a cube of watermelon.

Here’s a Tennessee twist to an old Champagne cocktail that puts a little kick in your New Year’s celebration.  We call it the Cannon Shiner. It’s based on a nearly 100 year old recipe for the French 75, named for the powerful kick of the French 75mm howitzer gun.

We’ve replaced the gin in this old recipe with a splash of moonshine that adds a Southern kick to any New Year’s toast.

Your choices of retail moonshine might be very limited, but that will change soon enough. If your local retailer doesn’t have moonshine, be sure to ask when they will, and keep searching. Once you have your ingredients, it’s time to pop the cork and get your shine on with good friends!

2 oz. moonshine
1 oz. squeezed lemon juice
1 oz. of simple syrup (or a tbsp. of sugar)
Champagne

Pour the syrup, moonshine and lemon juice in a shaker with enough ice for a drink. Shake for a few seconds and strain into a highball glass. Fill the rest with Champagne, and garnish with a lemon, cherry or orange peel.

From all of us on Short Mountain in Cannon County, Tennessee, have a safe and happy New Year!