Wildwood Spirits Co. isn’t Erik Liedholm’s first rodeo with intoxicants. The Court of Masters advanced level sommelier is not only an advocate for the cause (he has encouraged and tutored more young somms than you can count on two hands), but, as a self-proclaimed negroni connoisseur, the John Howie restaurant group partner and the wine director has also kicked off production of his Wildwood Spirits Co., releasing soon at the John Howie restaurants.
“One of my obvious inspirations is my love of alcohol and I have three livers,” jokes Liedholm at a tasting of his spirits Wednesday afternoon at Howie’s Seastar Restaurant and Raw Bar in Seattle. “And the other is that I have an attachment to where I grew up in Michigan.” Under the tutelage of world-renowned Master Distiller and Michigan State University professor Kris Berglund, Liedholm distilled his first batch in his home state of Michigan (Wildwood is the street he grew up on and both of his parents teach at MSU with Berglund). With the initial focus on gin (negronis!) and vodka, Liedholm and Howie plan to open doors at their own Bothell, Wash.-based distillery for this next batch (next door to Howie’s new Beardslee Public House, both set to open mid-September). Liedholm used exclusively Washington substrate (15,000 pounds of red winter wheat from Tri-State Seed, to be exact) for the Michigan-made round—ultimately declaring the distillation an homage to his old and new homes.
For his negroni imbibing passion, Liedholm’s aim was to craft an affable gin for sniffing, sipping and shaking, based on his “odorless, flavorless” house made vodka. Distilled separately with juniper, fennel, Douglas fir, Seville orange, Braeburn apples from Liedholm’s backyard in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle and a handful more of classic gin aromatics, the Kur gin (which is Swedish for “cure”) is a bull’s eye for Liedholm’s jack of all trades gin. Charged with a bouquet of sweet green herbs and a pantry thronged with elaborate spices, the London Dry style botanical quaffer fills the mouth wide with flavor, leaving it clean, crisp and thirsty for more. Now, where’s that negroni he was talking about?
