Trying to purchase the proper bottle to have a good time the vacations? We requested the consultants at three bottle outlets across the Bay Space for his or her suggestions.
Barrel Shoppe, Lafayette
You might discover a couple of blended spirits right here, however the majority of Barrel Shoppe’s bourbons, ryes, whiskeys and tequilas are single barrel and single supply — and almost each bottle is exclusive.
“We wanted a store where we handpicked everything in there,” says founder Matthew Hagel, who opened the store in March after 30 years as a distributor. “Everything has a story behind it. When someone buys a bottle we want someone to be able to take it to their poker game or as a gift and say why they bought it, something personal about the bottle, instead of just, ‘It was on sale.’”
The very same components put right into a bourbon’s mash invoice can have dramatically totally different flavors relying on the particular barrel it’s aged in. New Riff Bourbon Barrel No. 24496, for instance, has a variety of sweetness to it, whereas No. 23463 skews extra conventional oak.
“The precise mash invoice, distilled the identical method, put within the barrel on the similar proof, all the pieces’s the identical besides one may be increased within the rickhouse and one may be decrease,” says Barrel Shoppe skilled Carter Krznaric. “That’s what gives each barrel its unique quality.”
Suggestions: For newbies dabbling within the bourbon world, Krznaric recommends New Riff No. 24496 ($60) for a sweeter style with a lighter value level than some. One of the well-liked sellers is the Smokeye Hill Barrel Proof Straight Bourbon Whiskey ($80), which gained Greatest Small Batch Bourbon honors on the 2024 ASCOT Awards. On the upper finish, he suggests the Hillrock Bourbon Solera Aged Cask 1 ($170), which is unique to the shop.
Particulars: Barrel Shoppe is open from 11 a.m. to six p.m. Monday by Saturday at 3430 Mt. Diablo Blvd. in Lafayette; barrelshoppe.com.
Cask Retailer, Berkeley
Cask Retailer originated from a easy thought: If you happen to’re at a cocktail bar and uncover one thing tasty and new, constituted of liquors and components you’ve by no means heard of, that is the place to search out these objects for your self.
“When you want to make an Old Fashioned, but also want something on the rocks to taste the nuances, we’ll have a bottle to fill that void. Or if you want that rare, esoteric thing, we’re able to get our hands on that,” says supervisor Chris Banks.
The flagship Cask debuted in San Francisco in 2008 below the possession of Future Bars, a nightlife-concept group behind upscale haunts like town’s Bourbon & Department and Berkeley’s Tupper & Reed. Since then, it has opened a second retailer in Berkeley’s Elmwood neighborhood, with a taproom serving limited-edition beers and wines and cabinets stacked excessive with bottles of each hue of the booze rainbow.
Within the Elmwood location, there’s a very good unfold in each spirit class, from worldwide and home whiskeys to gins and absinthes rums, brandies, vermouths and amaros. There are treasures from far-off locales, together with “Clairin rums from Haiti, which are all about terroir and are produced by single farmers growing their own sugar cane,” says Banks.
A heavy reliance on native producers is obvious in picks like Residence Base Bourbon, made by two sisters within the East Bay, and apple brandy from Petaluma’s Barber Lee Spirits. Western gins, particularly, appear sourced from a magical realm, with a Freeland Spirits Forest Gin made with Oregon chanterelles and Douglas fir ideas and a Suncliffe botanical gin with juniper berries that (in keeping with the producer) are “shaken from the twisted trees of Sedona — a slice of high desert beloved by mystics and adventurers — then sun-dried in a landscape marked by energy vortexes, soaring cliffs and the endless Arizona sky.”
The tiny taproom has a speakeasy really feel and is invariably bustling with locals having fun with uncommon pours and the shuffleboard desk. Free weekly tastings herald much more of us, with latest occasions that includes Nikka Japanese whiskeys, Sirene Italian spirits and canned cocktails from New York’s famed cocktail bar, Demise & Co.
Suggestions: Connoisseurs of brown spirits will get pleasure from Johnny Drum Non-public Inventory from Kentucky’s Willett Distillery ($55 for 750 mL), whose caramel-and-marzipan palate stands as much as bourbons twice the worth.
For one thing just a little extra esoteric, Banks recommends the Siembra Azul tequila from the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico ($77 for 750 mL). Enjoyable truth from Cask’s employees: “During the fermentation of the agave, they play Vivaldi and Mozart to the yeast. Not sure what the effect is, but this is a delicious product, so we won’t argue!”
Particulars: The Berkeley bottle store is open from 11 a.m. to eight p.m. Monday-Saturday and till 7 p.m. Sunday at 3185 Faculty Ave. The taproom is open from 3 to eight p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and till 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday; caskstore.com.
Winery Gate, Millbrae
This cozy artisanal wine and sake store has operated in downtown Millbrae since 1999, specializing in small-scale manufacturing wines made with minimal intervention. However you’ll must get right here quickly. The bottle store will likely be closing in a couple of months, liberating up Bernardo’s time for his soon-to-open sake cafe and listening bar — Japanese tea by day, sake within the evenings — on San Francisco’s Nob Hill.
Suggestions: At Winery Gate, Bernardo recommends wines ($35-$65) from La Onda. a small Level Richmond vineyard run by Dani Rozman, whose winery is within the Sierra Nevada Foothills. Additionally value a peek — and a style — are wines from Domaine Antoine Lienhardt in France and Envinate in Spain.
Particulars: Open from 10 a.m. to six p.m. Wednesday, till 7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 1 to six p.m. Sunday at 238 Broadway in Millbrae; vineyardgate.myshopify.com.
