Forever Bread

Spirits distilled from malted barley and day old She Wolf bread.  Aged in glass with olive oil and Italian juniper.

• 375mL
• 40% Alc. by Vol.

 

Suggested Serve

Neat, crispy cold.

 

Into the Bottle

If you can’t eat allll the bread…drink it!

Bread.  And not just any bread.  But, really, really good bread.
 
Naturally leavened, wild fermented, sourdough made from organic, delicious, big flavor grains.  Like the bread they make at She Wolf, Andrew Tarlow's bakery in Greenpoint.  

In a prolific essay published in the New Yorker by the iconic American author, James Baldwin writes
"To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread." You can taste this kind of intention in the She Wolf bread. We wanted to see if we could bottle it

There's something life affirming about bread. About kneading the dough. Smelling the yeast as it ferments the flours. Or lining up at your favorite bakery for a fresh loaf. Grabbing a baguette for a picnic. Using a serrated knife to cut a thick slice and slathering it with butter or piling on a stack of peak season tomatoes and herbs. Frying up a grilled cheese.

However you enjoy it, bread of this caliber is best enjoyed fresh. But why let the journey end there? Day old breads shouldn't just be relegated to the compost pile - they deserve to find a second life. Bread that doesn't find its way onto the plate can find its way into the glass with the hands and tools of the whiskey trade.

We were fast friends with the team that opened Stranger Wines. During our first tasting with Stranger Wines partner DJ McNany, he dove headfirst into a conversation about a future collaboration. She Wolf, this incredible bakery, was in their group. and maybe if they had day olds, we could create something with it together. We didn't take much convincing, as you, our dear friend, might imagine.

We begin with Valley Malt - their classic distillers malted barley. We mill it directly into our mash tun with hot water at the peak temperatures for the malts naturally occurring enzymes to do their work. We add all our allotted She Wolf day old breads to an empty fermenter and pump our malt mash over the breads. The water, heat and enzymes get to work breaking down the full loaves of bread. After a few days, the fermenter has the consistency of a classic whisky mash.

The malt breaks the bread down into simple sugars for yeast to consume and produces alcohol as well as some fatty acids that bind with the alcohol to create layers of flavor.

After the ferment finishes, we run a pot distillation and then follow it up with a pot distillation with 4 plates attached similar to an armagnac distillation. This helps us concentrate the alcohol and the favor.

After distillation, we diluted the un aged bread whiskey to 45%, added juniper berries and Andrew Tarlow's favorite finishing Olive Oil, Pianogrillo from Gustiamo. It rested for a year before we used freezing temps and a gentle filter to strain out the excess fats.

Forever Bread is now available at Stranger Wines, Matchbooks Drop Shop + Tasting Room as well as mixed in drinks at Diner, Marlow & Sons, Achilles Heel and Roman's, the original home of She Wolf bread.