Cocktails Distilled
Cocktails Distilled
Connecting The Dots Of Flavour With Halftone Spirits
We are now all used to hearing about culinary influencers being utilized in cocktails, both in terms of flavour and approach, but what if that same idea was applied to the making of the spirits that go into them?
Gin, which is one of the few spirits that utilizes botanicals and spices in its production, would seem like the perfect candidate for this. And it is from that premise that distiller Andrew Thomas established the Brooklyn-based craft brand, Halftones Spirits.
Born during the Pandemic, the distillery, which also produces Aquavit and Vodka, is looking to embrace the sensors in terms of flavour, aroma, and colour, while providing a tactile approach to the breadth of tastes around us.
To hear more, we talked to Thomas about flavour global flights and the value of agility in a fast-moving world.
For more information on Halftone Spirits, go to https://www.halftonespirits.com
Tiff (00:41):
We are now all used to hearing about culinary influencers being utilised in cocktails, both in terms of flavour and approach, but what if that same idea was applied to the making of the spirits that go into them?
Gin, which is one of the few spirits that utilises botanicals and spices in its production, would seem like the perfect candidate for this. And it is from that premise that distiller Andrew Thomas established the Brooklyn based craft brand, Halftone Spirits
Born during the Pandemic, the distillery, which also produces aquavit and vodka is looking to embrace the sensors in terms of flavour, aroma, and colour, while providing a tactile approach to the breadth of tastes around us.
To hear more, we talked to Thomas about flavour global flights and the value of agility in a fast moving world.
Thank you for joining us, Andrew.
Andrew Thomas (01:40):
Thanks for having me.
Tiff (01:42):
Now, most people, when they start distilling gin, find a set group of botanicals, and then everything they do branches out from that. But that wasn't your approach.
Andrew Thomas (01:55):
When I first started distilling, I kinda took a look at the gins of the world and gins that, you know, everybody was making, and it seemed like they're all pulling from the same 15 or 20 botanicals. While that serves as a great base, and I do kind of use a base of five or six different botanicals as the basis of all my gins, I then stack on top of 'em another 10 or 12 botanicals to create a wider diversity of gins. It seemed really bizarre to me that somebody would kind of copy what everybody else is doing. Everybody's using juniper, everybody's using coriander, everybody's using, you know, some gentian root and, you know, or route. And at least in the United States, you know, we have access to thousands of thousands of different botanicals. And so kind of, I kinda realised early on in my distilling career, or I was home distilling initially, why aren't people u utilizing these things and taking a more culinary approach, kind of as you mentioned, really wanted to set up to explore what, how I can expand the category of gin
Tiff (02:53):
Now. What are the basic botanicals that you are using then?
Andrew Thomas (02:57):
Yeah, so pretty much, I mean obviously you have to use juniper. You know, gin comes from the Dutch word juniper, which is the juniper berry. And so juniper by weight is the predominant botanical in all of my gins. That doesn't necessarily mean that ju juniper is the driving flavour, driving aroma. So obviously juniper coriander seed is pretty much standard for the second most commonly used botanical. And then ORs root, licorice root maybe gentian root, angelic root, some of those like base notes. So the roots kind of provide the base, the, the juniper provides kinda that middle note. And then the coriander is a more floral, little more citrusy kind of the top citrusy kind of the top note. So it's kinda like the basis for my, all the gins I produced and probably the majority of gins worldwide.
Tiff (03:41):
When you launched, you actually came out with, was it five gins?
Andrew Thomas (03:48):
I think it was four. And we, we we quickly launched a fifth about two months later or something like that. Yeah.
Tiff (03:53):
We should preface this by saying you actually launched in the pandemic. That's right. Was that what you had planned to do all along or
Andrew Thomas (04:02):
Launched during a pandemic <laugh>?
Tiff (04:03):
No, no, no. Now,
Andrew Thomas (04:06):
Yes. No,
Tiff (04:08):
I don't think anyone would plan to launch in a
Andrew Thomas (04:09):
Pandemic. Yeah, no, that was absolutely the, absolutely, it was a plan to really explore what what Jen can be. And we kind of created different lanes or different designations for our, our, our different spirits. So we have our flagship gin, which is like a new Western dry style gin. We have our London dry gin, which is a little heavier than most London Dries, has a little more American oomph as it were. But then I wanted to have a rotating series, and so we kind of designed this nomenclature of having overlay gins, which were partnered with a brewery. So I wanted to really explore what hops can do into a gin. We have our wavelength series which is a series of tinted gins or coloured gins, which are usually coloured post distillation and then our modular series, which kind of takes a look at different botanicals that grow and clusters around the world and kind of harness this idea. If it grows together, it goes together. And so in that line of series we've created a Japanese inspired gin, a Spanish inspired gin and a south south African inspired gin as well.
Tiff (05:11):
Now, realistically, I suppose the modular gives you a lot of room to play.
Andrew Thomas (05:18):
Yeah, absolutely. When we started with the overlay series, just to talk about that for a quick second, I quickly realised that hops, when they're distilled, kind of just all taste the same. You know, if you're drinking an IPA and there's like 10 different hops. Yeah, they're all very, very different in nuance. And so the overlay series wasn't the sandbox I was hoping to play in the modular series. On the other hand, has been absolutely fascinating and kind of my my favourite, my favourite series for the exact reason I kind of mentioned before. It's like everybody's kind of pulling from these same botanicals and kind of creating the same gins over and over again. But when you start to really focus on the cuisine and learning the terroir of these different regions, you can develop something incredibly interesting. Mm. So for example h and d, our Japanese inspired gin, h and d is the airport code for Heida Japan.
(06:03):
You know, we were able to use green tea, black sesame seed, shho leaf chuan peppercorns, things that aren't typically found in gin. Our Spanish gin S v Q for the Seville area code, we use Seville orange peel. We use seek kelp rosemary time a bit of oregano cause I really wanna make a savory anxious gin that kind of reminds you of the sea and repair really well with taps and small bites. And then for our C P t, our Cape Town South African gin, that was by far the most interesting to me because I think I've utilised botanicals that really nobody has, I mean, maybe somebody in South Africa, but we use Umba root, which is from South African geranium plant. We use Cape Alo, Cape Gooseberries, bucci leaf which is a common commonly used as a tea in South Africa. Immor tell flowers, which have this incredible aroma of somewhere between like chicken stock and terragon. It's fantastic. So like finding and sourcing all these unique botanicals has been great for me as just a person that's naturally curious about what's growing in the world but also informs gins in a way that, again, I don't think anybody's ever really attempted.
Tiff (07:12):
No, I was about to say, considering you are looking at botanicals from various regions around the world, how difficult are they to source?
Andrew Thomas (07:21):
It's been pretty interesting. So yeah, for all those, so like the yuzu I utilised in our Japanese inspired gin, I had to source that from a small spice company in Canada. A couple couple spices I've had to import directly from Europe. They haven't been this like, it's less of like, is it easier enough to find, it's actually what's approved by the US government. We have a list called gras, which is generally recommended as safe ingredients. Right. And so basically it has to be on that list in order for us to be able to use it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> for the South African gin, I would've loved to use FBOs, but it hasn't really been utilised in food or beverage in the United States. And so it's not recognized as safe to use even though it probably is. Yeah. so in that respect is more like, what can I get my hands on?
(08:06):
Yeah. And so, especially with the South African gin, I was like, okay, I can get these seven botanicals, bring 'em in-house, you know, start to smell 'em, start to explore 'em, maybe do a, a test run of each individual botanical to kind of see how they result and then kind of mentally put it all together to think, okay, PTU leaf is fantastic. Let's back that up with a bit of eucalyptus which, you know, kind of brings in that fbo kind of aroma and then kind of round it up with, you know, these geranium and, you know, floral notes as well.
Tiff (08:35):
I suppose the question is then, which comes first, the flavour you want to achieve or the ingredients you want to use?
Andrew Thomas (08:46):
I think when designing each gin, it's been a little bit different. Like our flagship gin, I intentionally set out to create a gin that utilises zero citrus peel. Thinking about a gin and tonic, I was like, you're gonna add citrus to the beverage already. So I wanted to create a complicated or a complex spirit that utilised zero citrus. Now I do use sumac and lemongrass in that gin, so that does provide some lemon and ciella. So there is a lemony note to it, but it's kind of like citrus adjacent, I guess. So in that respect, I kinda had a theoretical idea of what I want the gin to be for the Spanish gin. Same idea. I was like, okay, I wanna make a very savory gin. How can I create that? So I was like, okay, you know, rosemary time oregano. And then sea kelp was kind of the one flavour that really unlocked that nice umami and kind of briny note that kind of brought it all together. So I thought more about the botanicals that I wanted in order to make that spirit. For the CPT G it was kind of the opposite. It's like, what botanical botanicals can I get and then what can I make from it as a result? So it kind of depends, you know, it's a challenge both ways. I can't say I adhere to one plan or the other. It's just kind of the outline of what I want the gin to represent, and then how do I, how do I accomplish that?
Tiff (10:01):
Now we've talked a little bit about you approaching it from a culinary perspective. Are you consulting with chefs through any of this process?
Andrew Thomas (10:14):
No, I haven't. But you talk to mixologists and they're kind of like chefs as well, right? They, they pull from a bevy of different flavours, be it in tomorrow, be it a, you know, brandy, be it, whatever. So it's fun to talk to them and, and see kind of what they're using, what they're interested in, what kind of flavour profiles are kind of, you know, popping up this season or this year or that's new on the horizon that hasn't really been explored yet. So I love talking with mixologists about kind of what they're interested in, kind of how me as a distiller can support their end goal.
Tiff (10:47):
When you talk about exploring areas that distillers haven't with gin already, how far does that go?
Andrew Thomas (10:56):
Oh, I think it's limitless. You know, I think we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg of what category of gin looks like. You know, this past fall I was a judge for the World Gin Awards, and I mean, there was some fantastic stuff that was coming out of Taiwan and Thailand and kind of, you know, the Pacific Rim area that's like, and they're pulling from botanicals that I, I certainly couldn't put my finger on. So I think the more the category grows, the more exploration we're gonna see. And I think it's very, very exciting. I think it's hands down the most interesting category of spirits possible because, you know, you look at whiskeys and you can do some finishes and you can you can smoke mults or you can do things like that, but that's a pretty narrow lane to work within, where I feel like with botanicals you can pull from anywhere.
(11:39):
And what's also amazing about botanicals is that they too have terroir. It's, you look at a juniper that grows in central Europe, which is the juniper we use, and it's very soft and a little fruity and a little floral. You go nearby over to Italy and you'll find a, a much more peppery juniper berry. And then American domestic juniper is very woody and kind of harsh. And so even utilizing those small differences within a single botanical can drastically influence the spirit you're creating. So I think the more people look at what's local to them or what they get their hands on, or you know, what they wanna import, you can make a vastly different spirit just by tweaking the origin of a few botanical.
Tiff (12:20):
Now you talked about new gins being released every couple of months. A lot of what you've been talking about in terms of experimenting with flavours would seem as if it would take more than a couple of months to actually research. Is keeping that sort of momentum realistic?
Andrew Thomas (12:39):
Yeah, I think so because I'm kind of working concurrently, you know, with, with new batches and refining new things and, you know, it's not like I just sit down for two solid months and like, okay, in eight weeks I need to put out a new gin. What's it gonna be? You know, all this stuff just kind of percolates in the back of my head for a while. Right now, I'm, I'm considering my next modular gin to be pulling from botanicals from the West Indies. Okay. I live in Brooklyn in an area called Little Caribbean, and there's incredible food and flavours that are there. And I had a friend bring me back some orange leaves from Jamaica, and they are just so expressive and so fantastic, and so bit by bit I kind of build this up the recipe kind of in my mind and want it to taste like and what I can get access to. And then I'll start doing some trial runs of it. And it takes about four to five trial runs before I have it fully locked in. I think it's ready for release, and each run takes about, you know, 10 days to, you know, go from distillation to final bottling and proofing. So, you know, it takes time. So I'm kind of constantly developing things concurrently in the background.
Tiff (13:41):
Are all of these releases limited expressions or are they things that will continue within your gin stable?
Andrew Thomas (13:51):
We kinda have our core lineup, which is our flagship gin, our London dry gin and our aquavit, those are kind of, those will be year round and then everything will kind of, you know, transition in and out. So we have our wave likeQ noir, which is a gin use utilizing smoked black tea cinnamon elderberry that's aged on calib post distillation. So it has this nice kind of smoky earthy fruitiness that kind of comes from the chocolate and the elderberry. That's a winter seasonal. We have just a few bottles of it left on our shelf here, so when that's gone, it'll be gone until next October. The S B Q gin, that was intended to be a limited release, but there's been a couple bars and restaurants that have picked it up, and so if they're still buying it, we'll still make it for 'em.
(14:30):
It's hugely popular within our tap room as well. But yeah, you know, so we know last year we put out for our second, our second anniversary, a barrel aged gin for that we only released 100 hand numbered bottles. And once those sell out, they sell out. So I always like to have, you know, six or seven bottles on the shelf so that people who come into our shop have the ability to taste through a wide variety of gin. But our, our overlay cascade gin, when that's gone, that one's gone too. So they kind of, they kind of ebb and flow. There's no like, hard date for them to end. I would say of the, of the 12 gins we've released, I think we have seven of 'em that are in currently in production.
Tiff (15:08):
Is there a point though, where you are just ultimately giving people too much choice?
Andrew Thomas (15:14):
I don't think so. So our core lineup is kind of what we mainly focus on for distribution within New York State. Whereas kind of our, our smaller limited releases are mostly found in-house. We do distribute those to some clients that are very interested in those spirits. But really we try to maintain a robust program in-house. So when people visit us, they can really sample through the 5, 6, 7 or eight different chins that we have so that they can explore with us what the breadth of gin can be. I love being able to talk to people through gin and share that with them. Right. I know if there's a limit, we haven't found it yet.
Tiff (15:50):
The name halftone actually comes from the printing world, doesn't it?
Andrew Thomas (15:56):
Yes, it does. My grandfather was a printer. Okay. And when we were kind of sussing out a name, it felt like a nice homage to him. It had a nice ring to it as well. And when we found the name, it, it was great for us because it kind of honed kind of our brand identity pretty rapidly. Right. Our type set, our kind of really graphic imaged bottles, kind of all got formed by the half to name I love the name because it also, the half to printing process is the means of stacking different dots of colour on top of each other to create a, a cohesive image. And when I'm making a gin, I kind of view it as building small pieces of botanicals on top of each other to make a cohesive spirit. And so it just kinda like really informed the brand kind of out of the gate like, oh, okay, this, it, it fits perfect for what we're doing.
(16:45):
And yeah, it, it, it, I feel like it's, it's a, a good story for us to tell. We're not a classic distillery. We're not out there saying, oh, we found this gin recipe in my grandmother's shoebox from 1810 or whatever like that. No, we're a modern distillery that's, that wants to have modern, clean packaging. We don't have some flowery story on the back of every bottle about who we are or what we are. It's just clean packaging. We list out every botanical that goes in there, and it's up for the drinker to explore what that spirit is.
Tiff (17:19):
I found it interesting that a lot of the words you have in the brand originate in publishing or design, and I heard assumed that maybe that was your background.
Andrew Thomas (17:31):
No, it's it's not actually worked in television production for 13 years prior to launching Halftone. But no, it was kind of like, once we kinda landed on this idea of printing design clean lettering, we kind of looked at that world of like, okay, what, what are some of the terminology that's that's utilised in that world that can help, again, reinforce the brand? So things like overlay modular wavelength, you know, terms like that just seem like a natural fit.
Tiff (17:55):
You've described half tone as being a modern gin for a modern drinker, but what exactly does that mean?
Andrew Thomas (18:05):
Yeah, you know, it's a modern gin in that it's not juniper heavy. It's not gonna, you know, smell like pine salt or be harsh on the finish, even like, you know, back sweetened with sugar. It is, our spirits are all, all pretty high proof rang, ranging between 82 to 94 proof, you know, 47% alcohol for starters is because like alcohol carries flavour. And I want our gins to be incredibly aromatic, very expressive, and able to stand up to any cocktail you throw at it. I mean, if you look at an agron and if you use beef eater or any London dry gin that's, you know, 40% alcohol, it's just gonna get completely lost in the mix of the two other elements. Our London dry gin is much hardier and stands up to those spirits and you can kind of taste it carrying through the actual drink.
(18:51):
So to be modern is to really explore like new ideas, new botanicals, and really challenge the drinker but also welcome them into the world of gin. When I do a tour, you know, we sample through five different spirits and I can't guarantee you're gonna like every gin in the lineup, but I'm pretty certain you're gonna at least like one of the five. I've had many people tell me, oh, I never liked gin or had some, a bad gin ence, as they say in college cuz they got drunk on gin and there's probably, you know, bottom shelf gin and our spirits kind of like open their eyes like, oh, gin is a broader category than what they're considering. So to be a modern gin or modern gin distiller is to really push the limits of, of what the, what the brand and what the category can be.
Tiff (19:35):
Speaking of pushing the limits, how do you decide what direction to go in with each of the new expressions?
Andrew Thomas (19:42):
I guess for me it's a bit of like flight of fancy, you know, it's kind of figuring out what haven't I done or what's, what's a new approach for the sv huge n as I mentioned is like, I wanted to create like a savory gin. I'd made a very citrus heavy gin with our London dry I'd made a citrus absent gin with our flagship gin. So I was like, okay, how do I create a savory gin? But yeah, so like I said, kind of the next gin in the modular series I'm kind of exploring is this, you know, Caribbean, west Indies inspired gin. And so again, it's like looking at food with what happens there, but also looking at the history of like spice rum, what are the spices that were used in rum like nutmeg and, and in all spice, which comes from Jamaica, how do I look at gin as a category and see what historically has been, has been used in a different spirit, but also how do I impart my own take on those botanicals into a gin spirit? So, you know, I just kind of look for inspiration wherever and however, I, I enjoy cooking, I enjoy cuisine. I've been fortunate enough to travel a lot and so just kind of poking your nose around and seeing what else is out there and how I can kind of put my own my own spin on those flavours.
Tiff (20:50):
Are you going to be forced to travel so as to be able to experience new flavours?
Andrew Thomas (20:57):
Man, if I, if I'm forced to travel, I'd be a very lucky person. <Laugh>, you know, with, with the pandemic for the last two and a half years, I've haven't been able to leave the country quite yet. I used to travel, I was out of New York City a hundred days outta the year. I spent a lot of time in South Africa, which I was grateful for plenty of time in in Southeast Asia and Europe as well. So I, I have a good, you know, background of flavours I can pull from, but I think that well is starting to dry up. So I think I might need to make another return to Cape Town or, or or Central Europe.
Tiff (21:25):
Let's look at the CPT Gin.
Andrew Thomas (21:32):
I know I want I would love to be able to send you a bottle and just get people's reaction cuz like I have had two people from South Africa and one person from Australia come in and, or the three of 'em all said like, wow, this reminds me of my childhood. Just the, the aroma, you know, you know, smells like the countryside, which that's the highest praise I could get.
Tiff (21:50):
If somebody is getting a bottle of that gin though, how would you suggest that they use it? How should they start with it?
Andrew Thomas (21:58):
You know, any gin I make, I wanna make it work in a gin atomic, you know, I, because it's a simple cocktail, it's one of my favourite most refreshing cocktails. So I think a general criteria for anything I make is like, it, it's gotta work in a GenOn. That being said, the Cape Town is very fascinating because we are testing out different cocktails with it here in our cocktail room and we were surprised that it just, it works so well with guava really. You know, we were trying to some different fruit juices and like guava just unlocked all the mintiness and the fruitiness and it's just like, it was a beautiful combination. I would think if you're making almost any tiki drink, it works great in that it plays well with coconut, those orange juices and, and things you find in tiki drinks. Yeah, it, it's, it surprisingly works well very well in that, in that kind of category of cocktail.
Tiff (22:44):
Let's have a look at something from the wavelength series, the Magenta Gin. How should people use that?
Andrew Thomas (22:52):
That is a huge seller for us. I designed that gin to kind of be the rose of gin, you know, summertime, it's sitting outside. What are all the summary elements you want? You want it to be floral and bright and fruity and kind of juicy and fantastic. Yep. So that gin is distilled with pomegranate rose hips, lemongrass, raspberry leaf, and then it's aged on freeze dried raspberries for about two weeks post distillation. So it has this just like really great floral and fruity note to it works creating a Gena tonic, but even better, all you have to do is add a bit of clo soda and it becomes like a sparkling wine, a sparkling rose in the summertime. It is so refreshing. It's, it's, it's marvelous. Also works very well with like a grapefruit juice, kinda like, you know, if you want that little, little more bitter sugar note with the raspberry, it's great. If you wanna make a French 75, it's, it's magnificent in that as well, you know, which is traditionally, you know, champagne or sparkling wine a bit of gin and like a lemon peel. So you add that to the champagne, it just becomes effervescent and beautiful. It's a very, very flexible gin.
Tiff (23:56):
Now have bartenders around New York been experimenting a lot with your gins?
Andrew Thomas (24:03):
Yes, absolutely. Just last night as a, I was at a place called the Winslow. They make a drink called Back to Magenta, which utilises our magenta gin. There's a place called Mercato Little Spain, which is a, a Spanish inspired set of restaurants. They use their S V Q gin in a white Negroni and it's magnificent.
Tiff (24:21):
Have there been any drinks created that you honestly didn't expect?
Andrew Thomas (24:28):
One very interesting cocktail we had was at a, a movie theater chain we have here in New York. They actually use our aquavit aquavit is, I kind of consider it gin's, Nordic cousin. You still utilize Jennifer berries and citrus peel and a bit of coriander, but it's much more a dill and caraway focused. And, and they made a, a cocktail called the Skull Splitter, which was our aquavit mead and hard cider all blended together. And you would think it would just give you a headache instantaneously just given the name and the ingredients that go into it. But it was actually incredibly refreshing. You know, it's, it had the the carbonation from the hard cider, this nice earthy element from the caraway in the aquavit and then it just like a touch of sweetness from the mead. So yeah, something that I definitely wouldn't expect to work, but was absolutely delicious
Tiff (25:14):
With so many unusual gins and making the bottles square. So they're almost like books that line up on a bookshelf. Are you expecting people to collect your gins?
Andrew Thomas (25:31):
I think that's the ultimate goal of mine. I would love nothing more than to step into somebody's home and see like the library of half tone gins. That's exactly why we chose that bottle. You know, we have all the list of botanicals written out on the side or on the spine of the bottle. The idea of being, you can kinda like go down the list and like, oh, this one has this, this one has this, what am I in the mood for tonight? Yeah. And, and I'd be, I'd be heartened if, if somebody had collected them all or start to collect them. We do have people that come into our tasting room all the time asking for our SoBro hopped gin or our mojito lime gin. And those are two gins that we kind of ran out of, well a year ago at this point.
(26:07):
But they, they still want it. They wanna know if you have anything left in the back. If, you know, if I had one person begging me for our Brooklyn brunch chin, which we use coffee in and I sold that person our very last bottle. I don't even think I have a bottle left of it at home anymore, but they're so impassioned by it that I could not not sell it to 'em. Yeah, I mean I think there's a little bit of like collecting that's happening. I don't think we're quite there yet, like people collect whiskeys, but the more limited these, these spirits become and the more traction we gain, that could very well happen.
Tiff (26:39):
Now if people do want to start collecting where are you available? I mean obviously you are throughout New York State.
Andrew Thomas (26:49):
Of course you can buy it at our tap room here in Brooklyn and throughout New York City and into the Hudson Valley region. But if you're outside the city or the state, you can buy our bottles@halftonespirits.com.
Tiff (27:00):
Excellent. And that's going to be able to ship to how many states
Andrew Thomas (27:05):
Yeah, we should be able to ship to I believe 28 states and Washington dc.
Tiff (27:10):
When people experience your gins, what do you want them to take away from?
Andrew Thomas (27:16):
You know, I think so much of gin is based around aromatics and flavour and all that is so well tied to memory, right? You know, it's like people were saying they had a bad gin incident when they were growing up and so they didn't wanna try gins, but maybe we can change their mind or you know, the C P T is evocative of, of you know, the landscape of South Africa. I would love it if when you taste our gins, it either stirs something inside of you that triggers a great memory or maybe it creates a brand new memory for you. You know, I want to be able to create something for the drinker that is completely unique, but something that they can easily fall in love with and take away and think, I want to try this again. And I wanna figure out why I love it so much.
(28:04):
If I get somebody to say, while that's great, let me take a step back and think about why I love it so much. That's what I want. I love leading tours and somebody's like, oh, I love this. Oh, now I'm picking up citrus. Oh, now I'm picking up all spice. Or now I'm picking up some other flavours. Like I love the discussion that they kind of have with themselves over the spirit. And so if I can encourage people to do that and listen, take, you know, take our gins, but try other gins in the world and have that same experience, if I can instigate that in people I would love nothing more.
Tiff (28:39):
What does the future of Halftone entail?
Andrew Thomas (28:43):
Yeah, I think we have a couple of very interesting things that we're working on at the present. We just put out a non-alcoholic gym which has been met with great, great reverence. It's been very exciting to see. So we kind of just put it out as a means to, you know, offer our patrons something different in our tasting room. And the reception on social media was instantaneous and certainly bigger than anything we've released so far. And so we're gonna grow that brand. We're gonna start distributing that brand probably around April. So certainly want to enter the non-alcoholic space, which I think is a growing and very important space. We're also releasing some new canned cocktails. We put out two cocktails last year. We're gonna put out two new ones this coming spring. That's also gonna explore botanical usage within a ready to drink.
(29:35):
Can we have our third anniversary coming up, which will release a new iteration of our barrelage gin, which will be very exciting. We have a tomorrow coming out, which is, you know, also working with botanicals, but in a non-st distilled format. It, it's a macerated format, so basically you're, you're soaking different botanicals in different proofs of alcohol to create a different product. So I find that process very intriguing cuz it's actually quite the opposite of distilling. You're using time instead of heat. So that'll be exciting. And then yeah another modular gin and maybe one or two other things up my sleeve before the end of the year, but we have a pretty full slate of new things to come.
Tiff (30:14):
You're keeping yourself busy.
Andrew Thomas (30:16):
Yeah, I like to stay busy, you know. Yeah. No rest for the worry.
Tiff (30:21):
All right, well if people want more information, they can of course go to your website with halftones spirits.com or connect with the brand via your socials.
Andrew Thomas (30:34):
Yeah, you can find us on the web, of course, at halftones spirits.com. And predominantly on Instagram username halftone spirits. That's probably where we update things the most. And you can hear about new releases and new exciting things.
Tiff (30:47):
Alright, Andrew, well look, thank you so much for taking the time.
Andrew Thomas (30:50):
Oh, it was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
And we'd also like to thank you for listening. Be sure to visit cocktails to distill.com to access the show notes. And if you like what you've heard, we'd love you to subscribe, rate or give a review on iTunes. Until next time, cheers.