Tour at Albany Distilling Co.

Saturday during our brief little snow storm, my sister, her boyfriend Brian and I braved the elements to the Albany Distilling Company in downtown Albany.

We got a tour of the distillery, which is pretty small, but it was really interesting. They get all their grains for producing the spirits from local NY State farms!

This thing was cool–all the grains go into this thing and turns them into a porrige-like consistency before the distillation process.

And then the good stuff comes out of here eventually.

After the tour we got to sample some whiskey–the Coal Yard, an unaged whiskey, which was clear and looks like vodka! And the darker one was their Ironweed Bourbon, which I liked better than the unaged kind. I don’t usually drink whiskey so this was really new and interesting to me!

The tasting and tour was $5. We got three samples but they were out of one so I had two samples of the Ironweed. The only one available for purchase though was the Coal Yard…since they were out of everything else! They said they’ll have more Ironweed in April, but they’ll be making rum soon!

My favorite part of the tour had to be this little guy.

I think its awesome that Albany has a distillery–and a few restaurants even are making signature cocktails with it! Hurray for local booze. 😉

After that, we walked over to the Pump Station for a drink, since we were right there. I wasn’t sure what beer to get so I went with the sampler.

So many to try…thankfully Julie and Brian helped me sample.

I think my favorite was the Dopplebock and the Porter. I think they do dark beers pretty good.

Not a bad way to spend a snowy evening! 😉

BTW, I hope you all have a great, happy & safe new year!