📷 17 February, 2020 | Day 136 | Apple iPhone 11 Pro | iPhone 11 Pro back camera 4.25mm f/1.8 | ISO 800. Bhavna and I attended the release event for the Sourland Mountain Spirits Two Years Straight Bourbon Whiskey. We sipped on cocktails of bourbon, gin and vodka. My favourite was the Straight Manhattan. We dined on girts, and greens, and mac and cheese, and buttermilk biscuits among other things. Ray Disch hosted a well-attended event.
Ray Disch is a co-founder of New Jersey’s first brewpub, Triumph Brewing Company in Princeton. In 2014, Ray founded Disch & Sons Distillers (DBA) Sourland Mountain Spirits and in 2016 built a distillery on the Double Brook Farm property at the foot of the the Sourland Mountain Preserven, part of a 17- mile long ridge extending from the Delaware River at Lambertville, New Jersey to Neshanic, through Montgomery Township in Somerset County and into Hopewell Township in Mercer County.
Drawing from an aquifer at the base of the Sourland range, our spirits are made using pure water filtered through micro-fractures in the geologic formations of the mountains, protected by the largest contiguous forest in Central New Jersey.
Ray and his wife Erica traveled to Hungary to purchase distillery equipment which was installed in a renovated barn behind Brick Farm Tavern. This location is unique to New Jersey, hosting a distillery (Sourland Mountain Spirits), a farm to table restaurant (Brick Farm Tavern & Bar), and a craft ale brewery (Troon Brewing Company). Sourland Mountain Spirits offers locally made, handcrafted, and sustainable spirits to the greater Hopewell community.
Bhavna and I love the award-winning gin, recommended it to friends and family for whom it has also become a favorite for making gin and tonic.
Sourland Mountain Spirits recently added a tasting room where visitors can sample the spirits and drink uniquely named cocktails. Tours & tastings are given every Saturday & Sunday. Bhavna and I have recently started making a visit to the distillery either before or after dining at the Brick Farm Tavern. We get to hang out with bartender Annie while sipping her latest cocktail and sometimes chat with Ray and Erica. It's a small town and I first met Erica while having breakfast at Aunt Chubby's.
After lunch at the Brick Farm Tavern we walked over to the tasting room at the Sourland Mountain Spirts. Erica Disch (the owner's wife) has given me the heads up that limited bottles of the new bourbon would be on sale. It turns out Ray Disch was there as well. We walked in just before another couple walked in behind us. Ray wanted us to stay for a while, but we explained that we had to pick up a child from an event at 2 PM, which prompted a conversation about how Bhavna and I would soon be empty nesters and that we would have a lot more time to hang out at the tasting room.
