The Buddha’s Hand citron is one of the oldest citrus fruits. What’s really great about distilling Buddha’s Hands is that when you cut one open, they don’t have any juice inside; they’re entirely pith (that’s the white stuff inside the peel). And unlike most citrus, the pith of the Buddha’s Hand citron is sweet, not bitter. This allows us to get incredible depth of flavor without having to deal with high-acid citrus juice, which is really hard to stabilize in a bottle and has less complexity.
"Coats the tongue with the oil of the botanicals. A very slight warming of alcohol as it goes down the throat and a puckering of the tongue, no chemical aftertaste/tang like you get from a lot of other flavored vodkas. But an intense, almost quinine-like aftertaste with the lime oils evaporating on the midpoint of the tongue. " Spirits Review
It takes us about 100 pounds of Mandarin blossoms (that’s about the size of an oil drum) to do two bottlings of the Mandarin Blossom vodka. It takes someone about an hour to harvest one pound of Mandarin blossoms, and they have to be picked at the height of bloom (which also means there are lots of bees) - so it’s a pretty labor-intensive process, but the result is so worth it! Incidentally, the Mandarin Blossom vodka makes a great perfume.
People get excited about the Fraser River Raspberry vodka because it’s just like fresh raspberries, not the bubblegum chemical compound you expect from “raspberry flavored” products. We don’t add sugar. We don't add anything. It’s just raspberries and vodka. We macerate and distill the berries, then we blend in raspberry juice. The juice adds complexity and a natural color. We had a totally fabulous design for our raspberry bottle, but when we put the finished product in it, the fresh juice didn’t like the UV rays that came through the clear glass. Now we use a green bottle that gives full UV protection, so we can keep distilling what we think is a truly exceptional spirit.
