Distilling Returns To Jamestown
Enchanted Mountain Spirits, a state farm distillery located in Jamestown, is named after the Cattaraugus County mountains and shares the colloquial name with the Shehy Mountains located in County Cork, Ireland.
The highest peak being Knockboy, where the O’Neill family recipe for poteen was born. Enchanted Mountain Spirits are the makers of Knockboy Poteen – pronounced puh-cheen, which means ”small pot” in Irish – and Knockboy Vodka. Both are based on the O’Neill family recipe, which is more than 200 years old.
Enchanted Mountain Spirits is the dream of Matt Moore and Mick O’Neill. These two lads have a passion for high quality traditional spirits.
”It all started on Labor Day 2014, when Matt and I were sitting around talking about things they would like to do,” O’Neill said. ”Open a distillery.,” O’Neill said, to which, Moore replied, ”Why don’t you?”
After lengthy talks and tons of research, a business plan was hatched. After 18 months, and some excellent support from the office of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Moore and O’Neill had federal approval.
”’And it’s all been fun from there,” O’Neill said.
The Enchanted Mountain Spirits team includes Moore, who is the business consultant, O’Neill who is the head distiller and day-to-day business operator, and John Fisk, assistant distiller and salesman.
Knockboy Poteen is never distilled above 160 proof, the traditional whiskey proof, which allows a typical whiskey nose and bite, but finishes sweet and smooth, and disappears in the throat, O’Neill said. Knockboy Vodka is distilled six times in four-two plate column using Knockboy Poteen, giving it a unique flavor profile and extremely smooth finish that will delight your taste buds. Each batch is diligently hand-crafted in two 30-gallon custom made copper pot stills using only the finest ingredients. Enchanted Mountain Spirits uses Reba potatoes, distiller’s malted barley, smoked caraway seed and single varietal goldenrod honey. All ingredients are grown and produced in New York.
O’Neill said Enchanted Mountain Spirits cuts their potatoes by hand; label their bottles by hand; hand dip the bottles in their signature copper wax to seal them; and the final step is signing and numbering each bottle by hand. Their batch size is 47 to 53 bottles … so when they say hand-crafted small batch, they mean it.
Enchanted Mountain Spirits offers tastings and tours, available by appointment and during open hours. Patrons must be 21. They also offer free board games, darts and corn hole in their tasting room for visitors. Their tasting room is available for private events. View their Facebook page for news and notes. Enchanted Mountain Spirits can be reached by email, info@enchantedmountainspirits.com, or by calling 483-4673 Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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