Treaty Oak Distilling Proudly Announces Waterloo Gin

After months of hard work and recipe testing, we are proud to announce our release of Waterloo Gin.  We've had the goal of releasing a gin since we first released Treaty Oak Rum several years back.  The name was an obvious choice once we learned that Austin was originally known as Waterloo.  Our goal with Waterloo was to stay true to the traditional London Dry Gin style while still making the gin's Texas roots evident.  Waterloo Gin is a true Texas Native.

Waterloo is a distilled gin as opposed to a compound gin.  Distilled gins are made by placing the various botanicals into the column of a still while the wash is boiled.  The vaporized distillate then passes through the botanicals and absorbs the flavor.  A compound gin is made simply by steeping botanicals into neutral grain spirit.

We use local juniper, lavender, zest from oranges, lemons and grapefruits, rosemary, anise, coriander, licorice root, ginger root and pecans to flavor our brave gin.  The combination of flavors is big - we by no means intended to make this a soft or quiet gin.  The lavender, grapefruit and pecan are a departure from traditional gin recipes, but they give Waterloo the Texas flavor we wanted.  

We hope that you enjoy this latest elixir from our distillery, Treaty Oak Distilling Company.  We're very proud to finally be able to offer it to you.  Please let us know what you think and keep us aware of any interesting cocktails you may come up with.  Here's a classic that we've been enjoying to get you started:

Waterloo Martini
2 oz Waterloo
1 dash dry vermouth
2 barspoons olive brine
a lemon zest
a green olive
Add the Waterloo, dry vermouth and olive brine to a shaker or pint glass filled with ice.  Stir (don't shake).  Strain into a chilled martini glass with a lemon-zested edge.  Garnish with an olive.

Be brave - Drink Waterloo!


Regards,

Daniel Barnes
Owner & Distiller
Treaty Oak Distilling Co.

Cooking with Graham's Texas Tea

We had the pleasure of spending an evening last week with Chef Kyle Jentsch at Barbeques Galore (in the Hill Country Galleria). He came up with some truly inspired recipes using Graham's Texas Tea, so we thought we'd share! For more information about the Barbeques Galore Cooking Experience, visit http://www.learn2grill.com/. We highly recommend it!

First Course: Sweet Tea Chipotle Shrimp with Jicama Orange Salad

For the salad:

1 jicama
1 can Mandarin Oranges
1 cup orange juice
chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
1/2 cup cilantro
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tbsp olive oil

Put orange juice and chipotle pepper in saucepan and reduce by half on low heat. Chill. Balance mixture with oil, salt, and pepper. Peel jicama and slice into small strips. Toss jicama and mandarin oranges in the orange/chipotle mixture, reserving some of the sauce for a garnish. Put jicama salad on plate and top with shrimp, cilantro, and reserved sauce.

For the shrimp:

2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground chipotle chile powder
1/4 cup Graham's Texas Tea
32 peeled and deveined large shrimp, skewered

Combine first six ingredients in a large bowl.

Pat shrimp dry and lightly brush with light olive oil. Heat grill on medium-high heat. Cook shrimp about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Place shrmp in the bowl with the mixture, coat, and serve atop a bed of jicama orange salad!

Second Course: Raspberry Sweet Tea Jerk Pork Chops with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Grilled Green Beans

For the green beans:

1 pound green beans of choice, picked
Stone Wall Kitchen Chicken and Pork Rub
1-2 oz oil of choice

Place your green beans (seasoned with oil and chicken and pork rub) on your grill topper. Grill over a mediu heat until browned and roasted. Stir the beans on the topper during cooking or they will burn. Once browned, remove from the grill and place in a bowl. Immediately cover the bowl in plastic wrap to let the beans finish cooking by steaming.

Once they are done steaming, remove the plastic wrap and season the green beans to taste with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and serve.

For the sweet potatoes:

HINT: These can be done a couple hours ahead of time and re-heated on the grill to save time!

1 yam per person
salt and pepper
cooking oil

Wash the yams thoroughly. Preheat grill to low with barbeque toppers in place. Slice yams into quarters or 1/2 inch slices. Coat lightly with cooking oil and place on grill. Cook until golden brown an all sides. Once brown, place in bowl and season with salt and pepper. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and steam for 10-15 minutes. Remove from wrap and serve.

For the pork chops:

4 bone-in pork chops
2 tbsp John Henry's Raspberry Chipotle sauce
2 tbsp Caribbean Jerk Rub
Graham's Texas Tea (as needed)

Combine all rubs and add tea slowly to make a thick paste. Rub the paste on the pork chops and marinate overnight.

Preheat grill to medium-high. Remove excess rub from porkchops and lightly coat with cooking oil.

Grill to desired doneness, and serve!

Third Course: Grilled Sweet Tea Peaches with Vanilla Ice Cream

4 or 5 peaches, halved and pitted
1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup Graham's Texas Tea
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp vanilla

Heat the sauce ingredients in a small saucepan until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.

Baste the entire peach halves with the sauce and place them cut side down on the grill over medium-low heat. Cook them for about three minutes each side and turn.

Spoon some of the sauce into each peach half and heat for another 4 to 5 minutes, until soft.

Serve atop your favorite vanilla ice cream!

Ho, Ho, Ho, and a Bottle of Rum!

Tis the season to eat, drink, and be merry! As 2010 draws to a close, we look back with sincere gratitude for the support we’ve received from all of you. Thank you for an amazing year, and we look forward to toasting to the New Year with you in just a few weeks!

In the meantime, whether you love cold weather or simply tolerate it, these holiday-inspired cocktails are sure to warm you up!

Hot Dulce de Leche

Heat 1 cup milk and 3 tbsp dulce de leche in a saucepan. Whisk until frothy. Add a 1 oz Treaty Oak Platinum Rum and sprinkle with ground cinnamon.

Mexican Hot Chocolate

Heat 3oz chopped Mexican chocolate in a saucepan with ¼ cup water until melted. Add ¾ cup milk, whisking. Add 1 oz rum and ½ oz chocolate liqueur. Top with whipped cream and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Angry Elf

Shake ½ oz Treaty Oak Rum, ½ oz Crème de Menthe, and ½ oz Crème de Cacao with ice. Strain into a shotglass rimmed with sugar – bottoms up!

Peppermint Rumtini

Shake 5oz Treaty Oak Rum, 1/2oz Peppermint Schnapps, and 2 oz Crème de Menthe with ice. Strain into a sugar-rimmed martini glass and garnish with a candy-cane.

Graham’s Texas Cider

Warm equal parts Graham’s Texas Tea and Simply Apple Juice (or apple cider) with one cinnamon stick. Best served with chestnuts roasting on an open fire!

Santa's Helper

1.5 oz Treaty Oak Rum
.5 oz Praline Pecan Liqueur
1 Egg White
1.5 oz Promise Land or Horizon Organic Egg Nog
1 Tsp Ibarra Chocolate
1 Tsp Cinnamon

Shake Treaty Oak Rum, Praline Pecan Liqueur, egg white, egg nog, and Ibarra chocolate with ice. Rim a martini glass with the Ibarra Chocolate and Praline Pecan Liqueur, strain into the martini glass, sprinkle with cinnamon and garnish with a cinnamon stick.

Graham’s Texas Toddy

Add 3 oz hot water to 3 oz Graham’s Texas Tea. Add a cinnamon stick, a squeeze of lemon, and honey to taste. 

Tea Time

Texas and sweet tea just go together – so when we decided to develop a sweet tea vodka, we expected it to go over well - but since we launched Graham’s Texas Tea over Memorial Day Weekend, even I have been excited by the response. A few sweet tea vodkas have hit Texas liquor store shelves over the past year, so it was important to us to use high quality ingredients and keep the price low... so that’s exactly what we did. 

Sweet

The “sweet” in our sweet tea vodka comes from pure cane sugar.  I tried using several different sugars and honeys, but finally landed on pure cane sugar because it is cleaner than the alternatives (such as the widely used high-fructose corn syrup) so that it actually complements the flavor of the vodka and tea instead of covering them up.  

Tea
The tea turned out to be the most important of the three ingredients, and selecting the right tea turned out to be harder than I first thought. I tasted between 40 and 50 different types of tea trying to figure out in which direction we wanted to go – and I now know more about tea than I ever thought possible. It was during this time that I met Jeffrey Lorien of Zhi Tea in Austin; after many discussions and tastings, we decided to go with a Nilgiri tea.  What appealed to me were the Nilgiri tea’s intense flavors, strong fragrance and a balanced body.  It's starkly different from the American and English breakfast teas most are used to - one smell of our Texas Tea and you can tell the difference.  


Vodka
We bring in vodka that has been distilled and filtered four times, then put it through our own proprietary polishing process resulting in one of the cleanest, simplest vodkas I've ever had.  To make our Texas Tea, we steep the tea leaves directly in the vodka, so creating a vodka that didn't have a burn or big nose but still had a smooth taste was key. 

Part of the beauty of Graham’s Texas Tea is how simple it is to enjoy with its own pure flavors (just add water!) or you can get creative and mix it with lemonade or your favorite fresh fruits. Our distiller, Chris Lamb, came up with a great recipe called the Texas Fuzz.  It's pretty simple - muddle the tea with peaches and mint, strain over ice and top with a splash of still or sparkling water. 

Look for us at most Austin liquor stores and all across Texas – and comment below to let us know how you like to serve the tea!

Let there be spice!

We’ve been spending a lot of time over the past year or so spreading the word about an increasingly popular cocktail – The Pepperita.  Put simply, the Pepperita is a Texas take on a traditional daiquiri. Here’s the recipe:

2 oz Treaty Oak Platinum Rum

1 oz agave nectar

1 oz fresh lime juice

3 fresh jalapeno slices

3 oz club soda

Shake first three ingredients with two of the jalapeno slices.  Strain over ice, top with club soda and garnish with remaining jalapeno slice.

The drink was an immediate hit for us as it allows the taste of our rum to come through, is easy for people to make at home but different from the usual drinks of choice and the jalapenos give it an undeniably Texan vibe.  People always ask about how I came up with a drink like this, but the truth is...I didn’t.  Curtis Cheney did.

I met Curtis a few years ago while drinking Lone Stars at Hotel San Jose.  Turned out that we both had a love for food and drinks, so we became fast friends.  We’ve stayed friends and he’s currently the head bartender at Del Frisco’s Steakhouse in Fort Worth (phenomenal food if you haven’t been there).  Back in 2009, I called Curtis up to meet Joshua Holland and me at an event called ZestFest.  I had talked the folks with ZestFest into giving us some time on stage to talk about our product and let us work our mixology magic. 

Curtis agreed to come up with a few drinks for the show – kind of a fire and ice direction was agreed upon.  Needless to say, the self-proclaimed "Pepperheads" at Zestfest where all *HUGE* fans of the Pepperita.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Here’s a video of Curtis making the Pepperita for the first time....

As always, thank you all for your support and, if you haven’t tried one already, go have a Pepperita! If you’re here in Austin, you can find one of the best ones at Jack Allen’s Kitchen down in South (and it goes great with the fried ribs).  They're also a tasty partner for the chile con queso with veggie chorizo at Curra's. 

-Daniel Barnes

p.s. - If you're not in the Austin area, here are a few more places you can find the Pepperita:

San Antonio
Siloh

Dallas
Eno's

Fort Worth
Del Frisco's

Houston
Bar Boheme
Anvil
Victor's
Beavers
Canyon Creek
Cedar Creek
Hotel Derek- Valentino
Bar Retro
Community Bar
Hearsay
Kublai Kahn

Well, hello!

We've decided to start a blog here at Graham Barnes Distilling to keep everyone updated on what we're up to going forward.  However, I think the first few that we'll be putting up will be an attempt to get everyone caught up on how we got to where we are now.  We released our Treaty Oak Platinum Rum just short of three years ago, roughly three years since we had decided to start up our distillery. We've since gone on to release our second product, Graham's Texas Tea, we're moving into a new distillery about four times our current location and are working on releasing an aged rum and a blended whiskey over the next year.

We're family owned - my wife Rachael and her mom Christy, along with Bruce Graham, Christy's husband - make up the ownership.

Luckily for all of us, Bruce has a background in both engineering and loving to restore cars - the perfect combination for designing and building both of our stills.  On the other hand, I had been a homebrewer for many years as well a big-time wine nerd.  Recipes and 'product testing' fell in my direction.

For those of you that don't know me, my name is Daniel Barnes.  I'm a sixth generation Texan that grew up in Menard, Texas, a small hill country town, where my parents ran a motel and restaurant.  I take care of running most of the business dealing with the distillery, along with Joshua Holland (our jack-of-all-trades lead distiller), Chris Lamb (Joshua's brother who is taking over a lot of our distilling), Craig Sherlock (he's our brand ambassador here in Austin - kind of like Face for the A-Team) and Eric Thornton (he runs our tasting department).  You'll be hearing from everybody on our team as we release future blogs.

I'll try to cover as many of our back stories as I possibly can, and spend a lot of time focusing on where we're heading.  Plus, we'll release some specials on different cocktails people have created with our spirits.  We'll be trying to open our doors up for tours before the end of the year, so I look forward to having a "block party" once we've got that ready.  I'll be filling you guys in on how we got this all started the next time I get around to knocking out another blog entry.