Nate Darling - Pekut and Carwick Independent Bottlers

Nate Darling

A close-up portrait of the chapiteau on the Essential Spirits custom-built alambic still.

Q&A with Dave Classick Jr. from Essential Spirits

We interviewed Dave Classick Jr. from one of California's earliest craft distilleries for a piece we wrote on Sergeant Classick Silver Rum (read that here). Here's the full interview: 1. I know you and Dave Sr. started Essential Spirits in the early days of California craft

A bottle of Ortolan Rosolio sits atop a cafe table surrounded by pink rose blossoms.

Nuanced, complex, historic: Ortolan Rosolio's Cal-Italian vibes

We've partnered with Ortolan Rosolio to bring you a beautiful, complex, Californian expression of the Italian classic made with heirloom roses from Sonoma and Ventura counties. Applying traditional techniques he learned in Europe to the roses in the garden of his childhood home in Berkeley, founder Rob Collier

Partial view of a person holding the two halves of a red-fleshed apple and pruning shears.

Introducing Ambix Spirits

“Surely the apple is the noblest of fruits. Let the most beautiful or the swiftest have it. That should be the 'going' price of apples.” - Henry David Thoreau America loves apples. The fleshy, hardy fruit is hard-coded into our national DNA—”as American as apple pie” is

A stainless tank of quartered Seville oranges

Amaro

If you remember your first sip of coffee, beer, or cough medicine, you are likely recalling memories of your childhood palate’s introduction to bitterness. At first, you probably recoiled at the sensations this bitterness caused—maybe a prickle on the back of your tongue, a "yuk" face,

Maritime scene with pilings in foreground, colonial architecture, and sailing ship.

Third Wave Rum Part 2

This is the second of two pieces about something we’re calling “Third Wave Rum.” We started Part 1 off with a few light jabs at woke consumerism and the moral and gastronomic superiority of cashing in on the “right” kind of ethical product or business. We’re in the

Used barrels on a workroom floor.

Third Wave Rum

We are what we drink We are what we eat (or drink)—at least this is the driving idea behind contemporary trends in food and beverages that seek transcendence, quality, transparency, and even social equity in cheese, wine, fruit, and, yes, distilled spirits too. Agro-food activism, as performed by Slow

Flow chart tracing rum production from raw materials to production, distribution, and consumption.

Handbook of Rum

The world guide to rum

Where does rum come from? In his book, Rum, a Social and Sociable History, Ian Williams calls rum "the global spirit with its warm beating heart in the Caribbean." Dreamy metaphor aside, most rum styles are legacies of former Caribbean colonies, but that "warm beating heart"

Two men rolling a whiskey barrel up a ramp.

Why Independent Bottling?

We occupy a unique position in the distilled spirits industry. We co-brand. We import, blend, bottle, rectify, and distribute. We don't distill, but we work with farmers, fruit growers, and distillers. We even do private label bottling. We're testing the boundaries of making, marketing, and selling

Image of a sugar cane field with blue sky in the background.

Handbook of Rum

The most interesting US rum

We take delicious and ethically produced rum seriously. For us, that means finding rum producers who make and market interesting products that we can get behind, both as consumers and as importers/bottlers/distributors. Domestic rum is particularly interesting to us. Sorting through ALL the rum made in the US

Barrels of aging spirits stacked against a wall.

The top ten best selling rum brands and what we can learn from them

What's the most sold rum in the world? The answer might surprise you. According to one online market research database, the Asia-Pacific rum market accounted for a dominating 41.6% of rum’s market share in 2021, mostly driven by India and the Philippines. When you consider further

A glass of Prunus Mume California Umeshu with magnolia blossoms and a sunset in the background.

Prunus Mume California Umeshu

The prunus mume tree is commonly called a Japanese or "ume" plum and is actually more closely related to an apricot than a plum, despite the name. While the tree is originally from China, the fruit is often encountered here in the US at Japanese restaurants in pickled

A bottle of Pekut & Carwick Heritage Single Malt Whiskey Stands in front of a whiskey barrel.

Heritage California Single Malt Whiskey

Grain: 100% unpeated UK malt mash Distillery: Sutherland Distilling Company in Livermore, CA Batch: Two barrels distilled in October 2016 Barrel: American Standard Bourbon (ASB) char #4 Nose: vanilla, menthol, cedar, and wet oak Palate: dry with a building heat, brief apple sweetness, brioche, toasted bread, hints of pear esters

A bottle of Pekut & Carwick Bulk Rum from Guyana in front of an oak barrel.

Bulk Rum

Raw material: molasses Origin: Guyana Distillation: blend of pot and column still Maturation: no age statement, blend of aged and unaged Proofing: lowered to bottling proof in used single malt and rum barrels Nose: sugar, light caramel, cake donut, slight nutty funk Palate: dry, mouthwarming, "chewy" maltiness, vanilla,

Glossy fresh lemons and oranges are piled on a blue plastic crate.

Citrus x Aurantium California Vin d'Orange

Impression: more orange than an orange Process: maceration on fruit and spices Base spirit: wine and brandy Nose: honey, orange blossom, wine, white brandy, vanilla Palate: orange peel, orange juice, orange marmalade, grapefruit peel bitterness, hint of sherry RELEASE NOTES: It's difficult to maintain perspective when you'

A bottle of Pekut and Carwick Maiden Voyage California Single Malt Whiskey

Maiden Voyage California Single Malt

Grain: Metcalfe barley grown in Esparto Mash: 100% unpeated barley malted at Admiral Maltings in Alameda Distillery: Sutherland Distilling Company in Livermore, CA Batch: 1 barrel Barrel: used bourbon Terroir: 100% East Bay RELEASE NOTES: Maiden Voyage California Single Malt is a uniquely local single malt. The bottle you’re

Four people walk along an aisle in a Scottish warehouse full of barrels.

Genesis

A few years ago, I toured two of my favorite whisky producers in Campbeltown (Scotland) and Osaka (Japan). I stood in a dunnage warehouse soaking up the smell of damp earth, black mold, and a sweet, piercing high note of oak and ethanol from hundreds of single malt, single grain,

A hand holds a copita glass of whiskey up against a plant and a brick wall.

Unmarketing our marketing

When you buy anything these days, you’re not just purchasing a product. In these modern times, marketing and branding is everything. Jack Daniels is the world’s top-selling whiskey brand for a reason. In 2019 the company spent $27 million on broadcast advertising. And it’s no accident you

A closeup of sugar cane.

We want US rum

If you’ve been reading along with us here, you know we love rum. We think it’s underappreciated and underrepresented and it's ready for the spotlight. But the spotlight, as always, looks a little different for us than it does for the broader world of rum marketing.

Detailed closeup of dried barley grains.

About grain

A while back we mentioned that we’re working with Spirit Works Distillery in Sebastopol, California, to release some of their excellent wheat and rye whiskey. Those projects got us thinking about grain, and how this is our first foray into whiskeys not made from malt (remember malt? we'

A hiking trail tapers off into the distant hills.

2021 equity benchmarking

The end of the first quarter has passed (wow that flew by), so here are some updates on progress since the new year. If you haven't already perused our website, I posted some of my thoughts on being a white small business owner in an economy built on

How to taste at cask strength

How to taste at cask strength

It can be challenging to get into drinking cask strength spirits. You've got the marketing hype cheering you on (elegant bottles, beautiful labels, engaging content), but that almost makes it worse if you're struggling to get around the high alcohol content. Here's how F.

Rum reading

What do you know about rum? A lot of people associate rum with sugary batch cocktails at a college party, latter day cheeseburger-in-paradise pirates (yarrrr), and headaches that make you want to never drink again. There's more to RUM THAN COLLEGE PARTY HANGOVERS One of my favorite books

An annotated image of the Pekut and Carwick label system theory with information category names.

How we made the label

Light is easy to think about. It's one orderly progression from short wavelength to long wavelength. Kind of like getting on a crowded Delta flight - everybody's got a number and has a place in the boarding queue. You might be tempted to think that aroma

Three bottles of Pekut & Carwick spirits are displayed against a cream background.

Do we really need another flavor wheel?

Flavors and aromas aren't that easy to categorize. Light is easy to think about. It's one orderly progression from short wavelength to long wavelength. Kind of like getting on a crowded Delta flight—everybody's got a number and has a place in the boarding

Cutting the Sugar Cane, a print of an original 1823 drawing by William Clark of enslaved workers cutting cane in Antigua.

Rum is f*cked

I'd like to encourage you to check out Céline Bossart's article Decolonizing the Whitewashed World of Carribean Rum on Liquor.com. It's required reading if you consume sugar cane products (rum, refined sugar, molasses) or similar things like coffee and chocolate here in the