[The following is a machine transcript and has been lightly edited for clarity.]
Dr. Tom Jackson:
Hi, I'm Tom Jackson, President of Cal Poly Humboldt, and I'm joined today with my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Keith Flamer, President of the College of the Redwoods. Good to see you, Keith.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Good to see you, too, Tom. I'm looking forward to this.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
Who would think that we would, in our roles, find ourselves in a whiskey distillery?
Dr. Keith Flamer:
I have the best job in the world.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
I know. Well, okay. Good for you. Good for you. We're joined today with the owner of Alchemy Distillery, which holds the brand of Boldt Whiskey. And that is Amy Bohner. Good to see you, Amy.
Amy Bohner:
Thank you for coming.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Oh, so excited!
Amy Bohner:
A pleasure to host you.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
But first, let's walk through some of the space and and talk a little bit about what we see here in this big building. Amy, share a little bit with us about what is in front of us at the moment.
Amy Bohner:
Right now we're walking into the actual distillery. You'll see three fermentations that are in different stages. So
Dr. Keith Flamer:
you can smell it.
Amy Bohner:
Yes, you can.Put your finger in it. You can taste it. If you if you take in too deep of a whiff you're going to get alcohol.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Yeah, I know. It smells great!
Amy Bohner:
So you can see this was cooked yesterday in this cooker here, this is 100% soft white wheat, the varietal is called Alturas, and it's California grown. And so this was made yesterday. You'll see it's a very healthy ferment. The one next to it was the day before, and the one next to it was the day before. And you can see that that ferment is done that's ready to be distilled.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
So it takes three days?
Amy Bohner:
3 to 4. Yeah. Now I would distill that today, but I have guests so that that'll be a day behind, but it'll give it a little sour funkiness that actually works really well in the barrel. One of the things we're very proud of is every time we distill so that ferment that I said was done. Tomorrow, I'll pump that entire fermenter into the still, I use these hanging hoses.
I distill everything, the water, the grain, the yeast all gets pumped in there. And when I'm down and I take all the alcohol off, what's left is 250 gallons of spent mash, they call it. We donate to the SWAP farm, the Humboldt County Sheriffs Work Alternative program. They have a farm in Fortuna. They grow or they raise pigs and cows and they get 100% of our spent mash. It's really nutritious for the animals. They actually don't have to buy as many nutrients when the animals eat our mash and the animals love it.
So these are all of the barrels that we have aging. I believe right now we have 36. You'll see each barrel has the mash bill on it and it says where the grains came from. Our closest farmer is Hindley Ranch in Honeydew. So the Mattole Valley, just 80 miles from here. And we get a lot of wheat and rye and triticale locally from them. So some are bourbon and some are whiskey, some are 100% of a single grain.
And then we can talk about what bourbon means, but you'll see the MASH bill on there as well.
Can you smell it?
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Yeah.
Amy Bohner:
I can’t smell it any more. It’s like the Redwoods.
Amy Bohner:
All right. So this still is a 250 gallon Vendome copper still. it is 100% copper. It's made in Kentucky. It was custom made just for us based off what kind of spirits we wanted to make.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
I think I learned more in the 10 minutes we were walking through this distillery than than many times.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
I agree.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
There's some fascinating things happening in here and we want to hear about all of them. What got you into the whiskey business?
Amy Bohner:
Well, my husband and I have run a construction company together for 25 years, and it was time to add something else to our repertoire. I had time and energy and we have a great crew working with him. So I thought what’s something I could do that also could be what we do together when he retires from construction. And so we started researching and this was the first idea we came up with, and it ended up being the best idea, so we stuck with it.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
Seems like a, well, fascinating way to find a new career, I suppose. I this is going to be an interesting question because I moved here from Kentucky a number of years ago, and of course Kentucky would talk often about bourbon. You talk about whiskey and bourbon and so maybe you can share a little bit about those two elements, how they're different if they're the same, all of that.
Amy Bohner:
That's a fantastic question. What I like to tell people is all bourbon is whiskey. Not all whiskey is bourbon.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
And that means what?
Amy Bohner:
So bourbon is a type of whiskey. Oh, bourbon has some legal requirements before you can put that name on the label. One of them is that the mash bill, the recipe that you use has to be at least 51% corn. You can do whatever you want without with the other 49%. The other requirements are it's aged in a brand new charred barrel.
And so with whiskey, whiskey can go in a used barrel. Bourbon cannot. Bourbon has to go in a brand new barrel every time. Whiskey can be any mash bill, it could be 100% wheat, 100% rye, hundred percent corn. But 100% corn would also qualify as a bourbon. So it's really the corn that is the distinction that makes a bourbon a bourbon. Did that make sense?
Dr. Keith Flamer:
It actually it sounded good. So here's here's here's a little little follow up to that. Now, I am a connoisseur of the product. However, I don't know don't know the science behind what you do, because I could tell it's scientific. You have to measure and you have to balance so many different things. So what's the science behind it?
Amy Bohner:
There's so much science behind it and there are actual scientists that are distillers. That is not me. I've had the training and I know how to do what I'm doing, but a lot of times I don't know why it's working. But one thing that's most important is when you're working with whole grains, which is what we use. We do not use fruit, we do not use sugar cane.
Everything we do starts with whole grains and we leave it in the whole grain form until we mill it and cook it and distill it, so it's very fresh. You need to convert the starches into sugar, into alcohol. And so that's what we're doing here. So that happens with hot water, with steam, with enzymes which help with the starch conversion. And that's really the science and the alchemy that turns grains into spirits.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Got it. Thank you. I think, but thank you very much.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
Still over my head.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Wow. The science.
Amy Bohner:
Mine too.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
OK.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
I see a new degree happening at CR though.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Oh, yeah. Starting soon. There we go.
Amy Bohner:
I could be a guest speaker.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
No, actually, I can. We can hire you as the instructor. Oh, that's even better.
Amy Bohner:
A pleasure.
Dr. Tom Jackson::
You know, sometimes distilleries will carve their niche out of I guess saying it's because of the water or or the area or the air. And when we are walking around here, you talked about the yeast and it's distinctive to this area, if I remember right. Can you talk a little more about that?
Amy Bohner:
Sure. So we do use a yeast that we sourced from Kentucky. We have to use a substantial amount of yeast. So I do buy yeast. But one of the benefits to where we're located is that we can throw open the garage door. Our fermenters do not have lids on them. And so we really benefit from wild yeast. And I like to think that being across from the wildlife sanctuary, you know, there's marshes, there's native plants, there's flowering plants, there's bees, there's so much happening right across the street from us that there is bound to be a wild yeast wafting over here into our ferments.
That gives us a signature flavor that if you had the same equipment, the same water, the same grains somewhere else, you would not have the exact same flavor profile that we do.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
So why yeast from Kentucky?
Amy Bohner:
We tried different yeast when we got started and we did little trial runs. And of course, we think Kentucky really knows what they're doing. They were at the forefront of making whiskey and we found one that we liked and our first rye that we ever had judged won a gold medal and it was the international competition and we said let's never change anything we're doing. We're going to stick to this exact recipe. We'll change the grain. But the water, the yeast, the way that we age, the way that we mill, will never change that. Those steps.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
We're here today with Amy Bohner: inside Alchemy Distillery, and we're talking about whiskey, bourbon, all those things that come with it. Related to this is gin and vodka. For some reason, I was told long ago there is a relationship between, is gin bourbon or is vodka a descendant of whiskey or how does that all work together?
Amy Bohner:
Great question. So vodka and gin and whiskey are all different types of spirits. So vodka we couldn't actually make in this facility because we don't have a still conducive to making vodka. Vodka needs a much taller column. You saw our column is maybe six feet tall. We would need one, maybe 15, 20 feet tall to make a good pure vodka, because the higher the spirit goes up the column, the cleaner and purer it gets.
And vodka is known to be smells smell free and.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
Odorless.
Amy Bohner:
Odorless and tasteless. Thank you. I feel like vodka definitely has distinctive flavor and taste, but legally, it says an odorless, tasteless spirit. There are five distilleries in Humboldt County. We're one of five, and the other four make a vodka. So we thought, you know what? That's covered here in Humboldt. We're not really vodka drinkers. We do like gin. So for gin, we start with our whiskey base, if you will, just the 100% wheat that could become a whiskey. But instead we turn a little valve, the steam goes through to pick up all these botanicals, and voila, it becomes gin. And then we barrel age our gin. So our gin is is very unique. It's not a vodka base, it's a wheat whiskey base, and it's barrel aged.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Where is your primary market?
Amy Bohner:
Our distribution is 99% Humboldt.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
99%.
Amy Bohner:
Yep, I do have a couple of accounts that are throughout California because they're boutique stores that asked for our products. We were honored to be in there and we do sell to a couple of boutiques. I also can legally ship direct to consumer in California. That's a pandemic perk that the governor signed into law that expires December 31st if it's not renewed.But I've taken advantage of that, and I have a lot of customers throughout California now that I ship to.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
So after that ends, then who do you ship to?
Amy Bohner:
Then I won't be allowed to ship and it will just be direct to consumer through our tasting room or sales through our distributors. So we have to legally go through a distributor to get into stores, restaurants and bars.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Oh, is that right?
Amy Bohner:
I can only sell to individual people, not businesses.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
So. So do you want, do you have plans to expand?
Amy Bohner:
We're so tiny. And because I'm the only employee at full time, I can only make two barrels a month. That's how small we are in this facility. So honestly, I don't have much more whiskey to go around. And we have such a faithful fan base. We usually sell out of whiskeys when we release them. So I think we're always going to stay primarily in Humboldt.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Great. Thank you.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
It looked like you were going to start a restaurant or serve food or something. Is that something you can talk more about?
Amy Bohner:
Sure. So we're we are building a tasting room. We call it the Boldt Tasting Room. And it is attached to our existing distilleries facility, and a storefront came available a few years ago. We told our landlord, we want that, and we started building our dream tasting room. And it does include a complete commercial kitchen where we're going to host guest chefs.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
So when you think it’ll open.
Amy Bohner:
I think we'll open this summer. We've been having Little pop up sales. We're having one recently when we release a new whiskey, we’ll open the doors, let people in and see our progress. But I think officially open will be a little later this year.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
This looks like a place to have a little mini social or something like that.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
CR-Cal Poly Party.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
Okay, if you insist. If you insist. you know, I looked out on the front as we were walking into the building, and there were there was an assortment of different bottles, and they had different ages on them. And we talked about that a moment ago, the science behind it and I think you said two years is the minimum.
But we also know there are bourbons out there for, what, 25 years or something? Is is that the older it is, the better, or is that always true? Or where's the natural sweet spot?
Amy Bohner:
It does tend to be true. You can have a whiskey that's too old and they would call it over oaked. So our barrels are American oak and they're charred on the inside. We do get them from wine country, so they're actually larger than your standard whiskey barrel. They're 60 gallons. You know, we've been trying to balance bringing in some income with letting the whiskey get older.
So right now we're just starting to release four-year old whiskeys, even though we've been at this for six years or so. So very pleased with the four year old whiskeys. You know, the longer it stays in the barrel, the less volume you get. They call it the angel's share. It does dissipate a little bit. You know, we have the garage door open, the sun hits them. It helps with the aging process because the whiskey with the temperature changes is expanding and contracting into the barrel wood and through that char, that's where it gets the color and the vanilla caramelly flavor. So that's the trickiness is not letting it age too long, but you know, taking it to market when you could use some income and you think it tastes pretty darn good.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
I know I'm feeling really thirsty right now.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
I'm just thinking. I'd like some samples, but it's the middle of the day.
Amy Bohner:
We should we should have started at Cocktail hour. Next time.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Yeah, Tom, we should have started at cocktail hour.
Dr. Tom Jackson:
I know. I'm setting the clock on my phone ahead. All right? Right. Amy, thank you so much for your time today. This I. I always had these questions about bourbon and whiskey and gin and vodka and all the others. But it's fascinating to be in this distillery and to see how it's made and what you're doing. So I think we both really appreciate your time and willingness and willingness to share with us the story behind making whiskey.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
As usual, I learned a lot from you today, Amy. Thank you.
Amy Bohner:
Thank you for coming.
Dr. Keith Flamer:
Thank you.