A Visit to Forthave Spirits

11/11/17 -

As I walked into the production facility of Forthave Spirits, located on the 6th floor of an industrial building in Bed Stuy, I was struck by two things: how tiny the space is, and how much activity was crammed into it. I'm greeted by a glass of Mondeuse and two men overseeing almost the entire production process for some of Brooklyn's most interesting new craft spirits. The center of the floor is taken up by six large fermentation tanks, used for macerations and storage.

One corner houses a myriad collection of herbs, roots, dried flowers and spices sourced from all over the world, which are combined in the making of all three Forthave products. Along one wall is a dismantled still, put together every time another batch has to be made. Against the back wall stands a rack with a collection of jars and vials: experiments in macerations and extractions. On the bottom rack are demijohns of small, pilot batches for potential new products, such as a nocino, a traditional Italian walnut liqueur, with the raw material sourced from upstate New York.  A stack of three barrels holds aging experiments of aperitivo and amaro. Against the fourth wall is a library, a collection of books (the "Treatise on the Manufacture & Distillation of Alcoholic Beverages" first published in 1871 being a particular highlight) and vintage bottlings of amaro, aperitivo, and various other botanical spirits, a source of inspiration going forward.

Though only commercially available since the beginning of this year, the idea for Forthave Spirits has been incubating for some time. Two friends, Daniel de la Nuez and Aaron Fox, met through a shared love of aromatized and botanical spirits, and a shared experience in New York’s restaurant, bar, and alcoholic distribution industries. Years of careful planning, trial and error, and fine-tuning yielded the first three products: a gin, an aperitivo, and a French-style amaro. Talking to Daniel, and seeing the facility, one gets a sense there is more to come. In a tiny space on the sixth floor, which functions as a distillery, a laboratory, a library and, a tasting room, the potential for locally made botanical spirits is being pushed and expanded by Forthave with ferocious enthusiasm and boundless optimism.

- Oskar Kostecki

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