Packzi Day Vodka with Detroit City Distillery Founder Michael Forsyth

FAQs

• How is Detroit City Distillery's paczki vodka made?

  Michael Forsyth said that this year they sourced a 100 percent potato vodka from Poland, broke 12 dozen raspberry paczki in half and put them in the still, where they floated in the vodka overnight. When the still is fired up, the alcohol vapor comes off first and extracts the essence of the paczki, then is converted back to liquid, leaving alcohol that tastes like paczki.

• What makes a whiskey a bourbon versus a rye?

  According to Forsyth, bourbon must be at least 51% corn, made in America, and aged in freshly charred white American oak barrels, while rye whiskey is predominantly rye grain, can be made anywhere, and is also aged in white American oak.

• Does bourbon have to be made in Kentucky?

  No. Forsyth said Kentucky bourbon has to be made in Kentucky, but bourbon can be made anywhere in America. He said that 15 to 20 years ago all the bourbon was made in Kentucky because there were just a handful of distilleries, and that Kentucky distilleries sitting on old stock marketed the idea that bourbon can only come from Kentucky and is only good if it’s really old.

• What does "small batch" whiskey actually mean?

  Forsyth said he doesn’t think there are any standard rules for what counts as small batch. For his distillery, he said, it means making experimental whiskeys, like last year’s single barrel of honey-finished bourbon: they kept bees on a roof, harvested the honey, put it in a bourbon barrel, took it out and filled the barrel back up with bourbon. It was a single barrel, and you can’t get it again.

• How does aging in a barrel affect whiskey's flavor?

  Forsyth said the younger a whiskey is, the more you taste the nuance of the grain, and the longer it sits in the barrel, the more it tastes like the barrel. He said you get most of the color and flavor out of the barrel in the first 18 to 24 months, and from about year four onward it keeps rounding and smoothing out. Once it is out of the barrel, it does not change with age.