1 Potatoe, 2 Potatoe, 3 Potatoe…Vodka!

Brothers
Donnie and Lee Thibodeau (co-Chairmen) have joined forces
with CEO Bob Harkins and distiller Chris Dowe* to launch
Maine Distilleries, the Pine Tree State’s first commercial
distillery. Their idea was to transform potatoes – that
starchy tuber with somewhat tarnished acclaim among
diet-crazed Americans – into premium vodka, a clear, potent
straight-or-mixing beverage with evidently limitless
appeal.

This novel
marketing strategy was meant to boost the value of the
successful potato crop that Donnie and wife Brenda have
grown for several years on their 13OO acre Green Thumb Farm
in Fryeburg, not far from the Cold River, near the New
Hampshire border. It took the four partners over three years
to create and perfect a potato vodka formula that hit the
streets in Maine last Thanksgiving.

I arrived at
Cold River Distillery a few weeks earlier, and, despite a
full-page teaser that had run in boston globe sunday
magazine, nary a drop of vodka was to be tasted. Assistant
Richard Raeke, business student at Babson College in
Wellesley and Freeport resident, handed out brochures to the
handful of curious seekers and tantalizingly showed off the
artistically etched clear glass cylindrical bottle. But he
scrupulously followed his instructions – no sales, no
samples – until the official release on Thanksgiving at The
Harraseekett Inn.

Since that
official launch, things haven’t improved much for
out-of-staters beyond The Granite State. The distillery is
still scrambling to fill orders to on-premise clients in
Maine and New Hampshire. Cold River does not yet ship to
Massachusetts, so consumers must travel northward to sample
this new product. Finally tasted in April – the
triple-distilled vodka shows a light, crisp texture, very
clean nose with a tang of potato, and a slightly sweet, firm
finish. Good straight, good mixer.

 COOL
DRINK Despite the
no-taste test back then, distiller Chris Dowe – pronounce it
like ‘female deer’ – was on hand to outline the company’s
background and the vodka’s evolution. “All the farmers in
Aroostook County have talked for years about making vodka.
Donnie and Lee came to me and Bob Haskins with the idea, and
asked us whether we thought it was feasible. Well, we worked
on it for three years. Bought this building last October,
gutted and rebuilt it. I’ve been building breweries for
McCann Fabrication (New Gloucester) over the last 11 years,
mostly New England operations – Shipyard, Geary’s, Gritty’s,
Sugarloaf.

“We bought the
best pot still you can buy from Gobingen, Germany. It’s 34.5
foot column allows us to make very pure alcohol. We’re
trying to get the cleanest, purest ethanol we can to mix
with spring water, cutting down the strength to 4O%.
‘Rectifying’ is when we go from the first distillation of 3O
to 4O% alcohol, to the second time up to 9O%, and the third
time all the way to nearly pure ethanol at 96.2%. That is
the highest possible, without going to the closed, anhydrous
system used to make pharmaceutical alcohol. Tailings we
collect because there’s a lot of ethanol in them; we distill
them again, then sell the rest to a pharmaceutical
company.”

A start-up
distillery, particularly for a product as exotic as potato
vodka, has few precedents to learn from. Dowe explains:
“There’s only one other potato distillery in North America,
and that’s in Idaho. That is Silver Creek, a contract
distillery that makes great vodka and potato vodka. When we
went looking for information, we found there wasn’t much. We
made our first test batch last July with the State
University here at Orono and also the state university in
Lansing, Michigan. Then in August, we made a second batch.
We’ve worked the bugs out. A lot of things can go weird when
you’re growing from a small batch to large one. This happens
at new breweries, too – it takes a while for you to get the
machines to do what you want them to do.”

Today Dowe has
three assitant distillers on his team to help meet the
expected summer demand; they are Joe Swanson, Chris Mills
and Ben Francis.

Making potato
vodka requires a different process from grain and corn
vodkas. Unlike grains, which can be easily warehoused
without change, potatoes evolve in storage. How many of us
find our 5-pound bag a-shrivel and sprouting eyes? “Potatoes
are live vegetables, they break down, they change. It’s
really important to keep potatoes in cold storage so they
stay fresh until you want to make a batch. Our potato
farmer, Donnie’s dad, knows how they act and react, knows
how to store them to keep them best.”

Then Dowe gets a
bit more technical. “99% of vodkas are made with grain,
which has natural enzymes. Potatoes do not, so you have to
add them to get the starches to change to sugar. There are
commercial enzymes that you can buy.

“Some places use
up to 15% malted barley and the rest potatoes. We could have
done the same, but we want to use only Maine products in our
vodka, and you cannot buy malted barley made in Maine. You
can buy the barley, but you have to go to maltsters in
Canada or elsewhere.”

Ingredients are
simple, potatoes and water, but require the best available
and a patient technique. “Maine water has a great name and
image: clean, pure, sparkling,” Dowe continues. “We use only
75 gallons of well water per batch of 5O cases of product.”
But which potatoes? Maine russets? Ah, there’s the scrub.
Some are better than others, but the choice is a closely
guarded proprietary secret. “We’ve researched potato types
and we know which we want to use and which we don’t,” says
Dowe with an inscrutable grin. “There are still hundreds of
potato farmers around to buy from.”

And lots of
curiosity and appeal for a drink that has the stuff of
legend in it. Dowe explains with a little local historical
background. Apparently in Aroostook County during World War
II there was a distillery that made potato alcohol to
supplement the war effort. They kept it going until 1948,
but then shut down because it was difficult work and not
cost effective. “There’s a lot of folklore about making
poitin – the Celtic name for still spirits – and still vodka
up here,” Dowe continues, “mostly among the French
Canadians.”

Dowe claims
they’re closing the ecological circle on waste products.
“We’re researching how to dry out leftover potato must so we
can package and sell it to farmers for sow feed or
additives. We’re generating about 1OOO gallons of waste per
batch; so far we’ve been shipping it to composters. It gives
the pigs proteins and other nutrients.”

MAINE’S
NATURAL BUZZ Chip
Gray presided at Cold River’s launch, held at his
family-owned Harraskeet Inn at the north end of Freeport,
just up the road from L.L.Bean. His mom, Nancy Gray – a
passionate advocate of matters Maine-related – explained
their support of the fledgling Cold River enterprise. “The
Inn is more into Maine beer than Maine wine. (We’re on wine
spectator’s ‘Good’ list.) And we want these Cold River boys
to succeed, so we chased them and offered to run a blowout
party on the eve of their opening. They were able to
introduce the product locally, and soon show it off
throughout New England.”

The support
extends to marketing strategies. Harraseekett Inn is
offering a specially priced two-night Spirit of Maine
Package that includes a fifth of Cold River, two
“Maine-tinis” at the bar, and other perks. These drinks
feature the vodka with anti-oxidant fruit juices like
pomegranate and blueberry. The Inn goes through a few cases
of Cold River Vodka a week, largely in Maine-tinis. Azure
Cafe, in Freeport, has a Cold River Vodka Tomato Soup, a
sort of warm Bloody Mary. Check the web for mixing ideas.
Marketing manager Nancy Marshall claims it tastes fine
warmed, like hot mulled cider or gluhwein. “We’re trying to
get it featured in ski resort bars next winter.”