Bootlegger by Tattersall
Bootlegger by Tattersall
Allow me, on this eve of a 70-degree Saturday, to amp up your summer 2019 drinking goals. Tattersall Distilling has done something very cool. They've distilled the Bootleg.
If your MN-DNA only goes back a generation, you might not be familiar with the underground drink of summer. It's thick with myth (and mint) of Prohibition mobsters and lake town summer flings, and like a Juicy Lucy, many claim to have the original and right recipe. Traditionally, the Bootleg is a mix of limeade, lemonade, mint (sometimes basil), soda water or Sprite/7Up, and a shot of vodka, rum, sometimes gin. Sans booze, this blended slurry of a concoction was whipped up at local country clubs and kept behind the bar, in the pool shack, in the golf shed. When someone ordered a Bootleg, the bottle of bright green sludge would come out and be mixed with the spirit of choice over ice for summertime refreshment.
Of course, as happens, those bottles of mixers would make their way out of the club with pool shack cooks and golf shed caddies, onto the lakes and beaches with the younger and less well-heeled. Personally, as a summer girl for better-off families, I can attest to the supply line that worked out of the back door of the Lafayette Club in the 80's. Bygones.
Minikhada, Edina Country Club, White Bear Yacht Club, Woodhill all claim the Bootleg, so I love that Tattersall is about to take it to the masses. At Valley Fair even.
Starting May 1st, you can buy a bottle of Tattersall Bootlegger which is a distilled spirit with all the flavor and none of the sludge. "We decided to distill it with the citrus, the limes and lemons, plus mint and other botanicals to give the spirit itself the fresh flavor," Tattersall owner Jon Kreidler told me. "The genius part of this is it's a cocktail in a bottle, all you have to do is add soda water. It's that easy." And that beach friendly.
If you think you'll miss the experience of sucking mint from your teeth, you might. But this is an altogether more elegant and balanced sipper, with the citrus bite up front and the mint playing on the side. Plus, the booze is in it and you don't have to refrigerate it: many a leftover bootleg mix has gone brown and nasty in the sun. It's clean and crisp, and starts at 70 proof, but you're going to cut that with a LaCroix right?
"We're excited that this can really go everywhere, with everyone, not just country clubbers. It's so much easier for bartenders, really a two-stepper, and with the volume that lakeside bars see in the summer time, it should be a big help. We'll be doing a launch party on the patio on June 2nd, plus a pop-up at Lord Fletcher's on Lake MInnetonka, and you'll see it at Rock the Garden, Blue Ox Music Festival, Art-a-Whirl, and even Valley Fair this summer." This is the year that the Bootleg comes for the people!
Well, paint my toes and call me ready for a summer of Bootlegging, you can sample the beverage at the Tattersall cocktail room right now if you're heading out for HH. I know there are other Bootleg products out there, a bottled malt beverage, and a new non-boozy mixer making the rounds, so I'll do my due diligence and be sure to work hard on some comparisons. All. Summer. Long.
