Description

Bootlegger Gin

Prohibition Distillery is located two hours northwest of New York City in historic Roscoe, NY. Most people know our Catskill town as the home of American fly fishing, but we like to think of it as a “Distilling town with a fishing problem”.

We made the 1929 Roscoe Firehouse and former VFW Hall our home. Our goal is to produce the highest quality spirits, help our local economy, and live our dream along the way. We chose the firehouse because we wanted to preserve the building, and the 30 foot arched ceilings in the rear made a great place for our 20 plate column. Over the years the rear of the firehouse has been the town gymnasium, a shooting range, and eventually housed the fire trucks that protected Roscoe.

Our barrel house is next door to our main distillery. This building had served as the VFW Post dedicated in honor of First Lieutenant, Harold “Wild Eye” Wood, United States Army Air Corps, 1920 to 1944. Some of the old-timers from Roscoe have told us, they recollect the brave airman flying his P-47D Thunderbolt over the town, ‘tipping his wing, then turning east to head off to war”.  We figured aging our whiskey in a building that housed so many great memories would be good karma.

The symbols seen throughout our distillery are the poppy flower and Florian Cross. The poppy, being an enduring symbol of medicinal anagesic from the battle fields of World War I to the opium dens of the far east, is a fitting image for our brand. It’s a nod to the Art Nouveau style popular in the U.S. during Prohibition, as well as powerful image worn on the lapel throughout the world as a symbol of remembrance of soldiers who have died during wartime. We put it on every bottle as a toast to the memory of those fallen friends. And, as we operate out of the Roscoe Firehouse, using the Florian Cross, the symbol for the patron saint of firefighters, is a fitting and powerful motif for our brand.

We took our inspiration from the classic London dry gins which use a traditional maceration process and a simple blend of botanicals. We wanted to make a nod to the past as we created a new classic.  Bootlegger 21 NY Gin uses only five botanicals, juniper, orris root, coriander, lemon verbena, and bitter orange peels that are macerated in the finest 100% corn neutral spirit before it’s carefully redistilled on our pot stills. The resulting spirit is blended down to 94 proof for bottling using the finest Catskill Mountain water.

Balanced is the word that best describes our gin. The classic nose of juniper pulls you to the glass, when it hits your mouth, the palate experiences a complementary medley of floral, earthy, and soft citrus notes.

Bootlegger Gin Notes To Your Senses:

• APPEARANCE: Crystal clear
• AROMA: Juniper and citrus
• TASTE: Balanced notes of juniper, lemon verbena, bitter orange peels and floral notes
• FINISH: Clean and complex
• ABV: 47%