Spitters are Quitters

If you're into craft spirits - or if you're just into fun - and you're in the SF Bay Area, take a little drive under water to Alameda and visit St. George Spirits (often known in the Midwest as the distillers of the Hangar 1 label). You'll get onto Webster Street and go through what locals call "The Tube" to pass under the Oakland Inner Harbor and end up magically on Alameda Island. I say magically because the great arches bookending the tunnel say, respectively, "Oakland Portal" and "Alameda Portal". Pretty sure that means there's magic involved.



If you've never been on the island before or you weren't aware that the distillery is in the hangar of an old naval base, you might think you're headed the wrong way when the directions take you beyond the cute, identical suburban housing and lead you through chain link gates with barbed wire on top, past abandoned warehouses and through massive parking lot-like spaces that have been turned into a real road with painted lines and everything. Keep going. This is part of the charm. Eventually, you'll land on the southwest side of the island with a spectacular view of San Francisco (as long as it isn't foggy). Welcome to St. George Spirits.

I was here almost exactly a year ago and ran through the tasting but didn't get a tour. This time, there was a tour just starting, so I signed up for the "Basic Training" Tour + Tasting and jumped right in. I won't spoil your tour with all the cool stories, but suffice it to say that the guides are incredibly entertaining (Paulie was ours, and he tells some really fun jokes and makes hilarious references to lots of activities legal and not-as-legal). They're also very educational, and while I knew most of the general spirits info he shared, much of it was very eye-opening to the group I joined - managers from a Central California winery/distribution business on "retreat" in San Francisco for a few days. I felt right at home.

Tasting was fun, even though I'd had several of the spirits before. I just can't get over how amazing their raspberry liqueur is. Every. Time. And I'm generally not one for liqueurs. We sampled their pear eau de vie (great), the spiced pear vodka (dangerous), Hangar 1 Buddah's Hand Citron vodka (love), Terroir "Mt. Tam" Gin (I prefer their Botanivore Gin), Breaking & Entering Bourbon (super smooth and light... too light for me), raspberry liqueur, and absinthe. I love anise-flavored things, but I still haven't really come around to absinthe, even the good stuff.

I networked with one of the tasting hosts, bought the raspberry liqueur and a few other things that we didn't sample for my SF hosts and myself - although the product I really wanted (the single-malt whiskey) was sold out and the next batch won't be released for a few months yet. Only produced in small batches, Wisconsin just isn't a large enough market to get a share. Guess I'll have to come back out.

When you sign up for Basic Training, you get this dog tag souvenir.

Paulie explaining the distillation process followed at St. George.

Processing/proofing area. In foreground, bottling line.

Yeah, there's a story for this.

The tasting room. In the year since I last visited, they remodeled and expanded. On Saturdays, they handle 400-500 tastings, and people are lined up out the door waiting. Per California law, the tastings are no charge; $15 basic training pays for the tour.

Buddha's Hand citrus fruit used in the Hangar 1 citrus vodka. It's my favorite citrus-infused vodka.

At the tasting bar here, "Spitters are quitters." Don't worry, though; you only get 2 sips of each sample.