Winter / Spring 2008

Q&A with Ansley Coale of Craft Distillers

Ansley Coale co-founded the Germain-Robin Brandy Distillery in 1982; the antique cognac still is on his ranch, outside Ukiah. In 2001, Coale developed the concept and packaging for Hangar One Vodka.

Caddell & Williams and the Germain-Robin tasting room are in Ukiah: 707.462.0314. M–F, 9–4.

Q: Fill me in on craft distillers.

A: We market distilled spirits made by hand from pretty special ingredients.

Q: Does that mean expensive?

A: Well, in the sense that espresso costs more than a cup of Maxwell House. It really means stuff that tastes great, has distinctive flavor, is made in authentic ways. I think most of our stuff is a bargain.

Q: How is a $120 bottle of California brandy a bargain?

A: You mean, like the Germain-Robin XO? The grapes for one barrel of XO cost $10,000: 6 tons of premium pinot noir, from the Roederer people in Anderson Valley. That barrel—$900 of Limousin oak—takes 48 hours of distillation by a great craftsman on a little bitty antique still and then about 17 years in the aging cellar. But it’s not about how much it costs to make—it’s about drinking something real and genuinely wonderful, something you can pour an ounce of and spend an hour experiencing. That 1-ounce experience, which took talent & skill and 17 years to create, costs you $5.

Q: What’s the competition?

A: It’s not the mega-brands, like Remy-Martin or Grey Goose: they establish the market. The real competition is for someone’s attention, someone taking the time to taste our stuff instead of doing something else. What we market is so good that people remember their first taste for a long time. When you’ve experienced something distilled using craft methods, it’s hard to go back to the standard products.

Q: How is the market?

A: It’s not easy, because we have limited resources, but it’s getting easier. People are much more open to small-production spirits than they used to be. It’s like what happened to wine, going from Lancers and Blue Nun to great vineyard-specific cabernets, or to beer, going from Budweiser to craft brews. You can drink big-brand spirits or you can drink something harder to find but much more carefully made, which can mean the difference between OK and fabulous.

Q: What’s new?

A: Well, we just bottled a very complex Germain-Robin Apple Brandy XO. We found something wonderful in Oaxaca, a hand-made mezcal aged in French oak, the Los Danzantes reposado. Something unbelievable that we’re almost out of is the Hangar One chipotle vodka. Put some of it in a glass with Godiva liqueur.

Q: Chipotle? Get real.

A: Hey, it’s exactly real. Real is three different kinds of pepper, custom roasted at T-Rex Barbeque in Berkeley. Real is just 400 cases of one of the most sophisticated and accomplished distillations ever performed. Real is when you taste something you never had before and it’s like: “Oh my God!”

Caddell & Williams
3001 S State St #35 • Ukiah CA • 707 462-0314 • M–F, 9–4
Call 800 782-8145 for a Caddell & Williams catalogue, or go to www.caddellwilliams.com