A Visit to Tuthilltown Distillery
-
- April
- 20
We’re working on a story about the first whiskey made in New York state since before prohibition. It comes to us from a little place in Gardiner, N.Y. called Tuthilltown Spirits.
Gardiner is in Ulster County, a little more than an hour north of Rockland, next to an adorable old Gristmill that is on the National Register of Historic Places:
The mill has been around since 1788. Until Tuthilltown Spirits bought it, the mill was used to grind kosher flour out of matzo. Before that, it was a regular flour mill.
Here’s a painting of it Ralph found in the barn:
Wow! You might think: They can grind their own grains for spirits! How cool! They could have, until just recently. One of the owners, Ralph Erenzo, sold the property that has the mill and river:
Too bad  because the mill is how Ralph’s partner, Brian Lee, became interested in the distillery. He was a volunteer for many years at Philipsburg Manor, where he became the resident expert on milling.
Now he’s the resident expert on distilling. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of Brian (who lives in Suffern, by the way), but we’ll have plenty in the newspaper next week and when a segment airs about Tuthilltown on RNN.
But here’s Ralph, checking the still, which is in a building across the street from the gristmill.
The still:
After the booze is distilled (a long process, which we’ll explain briefly in the article), it goes into these wooden barrels to age:
See the little one? That’s one of the barrels they use for their “Baby Bourbon.” They say it’s the first bourbon ever to be produced in New York.
Here’s a photo of a bottle, which I bought at Piermont Fine Wines & Spirits (along with some wine I bought  please ignore that!)
I had a taste at the shop, and I quite like it. It’s expensive though  $40 for a .375. If you’re interested, though, get down there: owner Jung Kim only has four bottles left. (Though there are other retail outlets; check the Tuthilltown web site.)
This kind of craftsmanship is amazing to see in the Hudson Valley. And my favorite part? The relationship it builds among craftsman of all sorts: Brian has asked farmers to grow a special breed of corn for him; and when he’s done using the barrels, a local vinegar-maker buys them.
Stay tuned for more about Tuthilltown  we’re heading to Manhattan on Monday for the launch party at the Four Seasons!
This entry was posted
on Friday, April 20th, 2007 at 10:10 am by Liz Johnson.
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(4.62 out of 5)
(4.21 out of 5)
think that it really sucks about what happened to the Tuthilltown Mill. I don’t know Brian Lee, but I knew Charles Howell for a number of years who was the miller at Philipsburg Manor Mill.
The number one rule of the National Register of Historic Places is that you cannot change the intended original use of the structure. This means that it can only ever be a flour mill. Ralph Erenzo destroyed the wonderful Kosher flour business which did not hurt any body. Develop the property, that sucks when you destroy the art of the miller to make booze. Booze is not a foodstuff, and what craftsmanship is there in making Bourbon. The tradition of the area is that it was an early milling center under the Dutch. The most expensive thing about making flour is not the cost of production, labor, grain, but the individual cost per flour sack.
Sure George Smith wanted to retire. But shut down the milling business, sell off the flour making machinery, and try and rent the mill out to someone sucker who would try and make a go of it. What kind of business sense it that. I know someone who has an old flour mill which produces flour. He always says if his profit drops below 150 thousand a year, he is selling out. Somehow it is not worth it for him to say in business. You can operate an old or modern flour mill and be dependent up people walking in the door to buy flour. You will never make any money that way, unless you are Mabry Mill along the Blue Ridge Parkway that sells 3 million sacks of corn meal, corn grist, and buckwheat flour, and all of it make in North Carolina and New York State.
I’d like to respond to the above. When I bought the mill from George Smith Jr. he was ready to stop. The mill had a single customer, the Kosher community, which Master Matzo baker was hunting for and found a more modern facility using twentieth century machines rather than eighteenth century machines modified to fit the current need. And no market would support the work. We ran the mill for three years and the Kosher client went off to his new mill where he is happy and producing flour now and our good friend. You are incorrect, there is no obligation to maintain any building or structure on the National Register of Historic Palces in it’s original shape, form or use. It has simply outlived it’s useful life as a mill. I attempted to find someone to rent or lease or somehow use the mill for three years without success. Where were you? It is now being converted to a new use as a restaurant so that it will still be open to the public and to the extent possible still reflect a feel for the early history of the place and it’s use. But you are out of your league when you critize others for not what you know nothing about. You “know someone whoo has an old flour mill which produced flour.” That appears to be the extent of your knowlege about the workings or responsibility of making flour with a 225 year old wooden water powered machine that can compete on the modern market where flour is available at every single grocery store in the country for $2.50 a five pound bag. Adaptive reuse is the key to keeping historic buildings in use and available to the public; not insistance on owners maintaining a diorama of early life to satisfy the asthetic senseibilities of people who don’t have the temerity to reach into their own pockets and put their money and time and reputation on the table. Better to keep buildings in use and open to the public, or they simply rot and fall down.