Sugar Producer

WWW.SUGARPRODUCER.COM 19 Does your business need video? Short clips for social media Full videos for marketing Commercial grade for other use Our videographers have a combined 46 years experience! www.videobyhms.com FOR INFORMATION CALL: ROB • 208-542-2218 – KEVIN • 208-542-2237 4108-2 HarrisMediaServices12h.indd 1 4108-2 HarrisMediaServices12h.indd 1 10/20/22 5:24 PM 10/20/22 5:24 PM ple will go 'down-market' and buy very inexpensive vodka. Like many consum- able products, you get what you pay for. Cheap, grain-based vodka can be very astringent to the point it is difficult to tolerate," he said. "A lot of younger people will go down this path and so vodka oen gets a bad reputation for being unsavory and causing "day-aer distress," also known as nasty hangovers. at's not the reality of sugarcane-based vodka." Kelly sources organic sugarcane juice and has it shipped to the distillery. "Sugarcane is arguably a supe- rior source of agricultural base for vodka-making. It has a high enough concentration of readily accessible sug- ars for fermentation. It is much easier than other crops to ferment and distill and does not require the same type of processing as starch-based products. It is more expensive to source, but the result is a cleaner fermentation, a simpler distillation process and a much smoother finished product," Kelly said. "e biggest challenge is getting people to taste it and understand that sugar- cane vodka does not contain any sugar because there is no residual sugar aer fermentation." Very few people drink grain-based vodka straight for the taste, but Kelly says that changes with sugarcane-based vodka. "Sugarcane has a pleasant aroma and a smoothness marked by a surprising absence of alcohol burn with top notes of sweetness consistent with the aroma," he said. "So that's why we encourage people to 'taste vodka again for the first time.'" In addition to tasting great, Felene Vodka is also affordable. "Felene was not the first distillery to make sugarcane vodka, but we are one of the first to market it at a mainstream pricing model while offering the highest quality available," Kelly said. "Prior to Fe- lene, one national brand was selling at $30 for a 750ml bottle. It was more of a novelty product. Felene retails at about $19.99 and is marketed as a high-quality vodka." Sugarcane has historically been asso- ciated with rum, but Alan Edmondson of WildRye Distilling in Bozeman, MT, is putting a new spin on an old favorite. His Ramsdell's Parrot Silver "Rum" is an un-aged sugar spirit made from beet sugar, meaning that it has never been in any sort of barrel and has the same flavors as when it came off the still. "WildRye Distilling, LLC was started in 2014 with the simple goal of shar- ing our passion for innovative cra spirits. e Sugar Beet 'Rum' was one of our first products," said Edmond- son. "When we first opened, our sweet corn Bourbon ("Five Drops") was the flagship specialty, but that takes time to age," said Edmondson. "We decided to use something Montana has a lot of— sugarbeets—to produce 'rum.' e U.S. government has designated categories for how alcohol can be labeled, based on "American farmers are among the most efficient in the world, and it will be exciting to see what the next 50 years will bring."

• Cover