The Tasting Panel magazine

September 2015

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130  /  the tasting panel  /  september 2015 l ike most craft distilleries, Greenbar—makers of the largest portfolio of organic spirits—started out of love. But it wasn't passion for spirits that launched the 11-year-old company; it was romantic love. When Melkon Khosrovian discovered that his fiancée, Litty Mathew, strongly disliked the Old World vodkas and fruit brandies offered at his family gatherings, he set out to create flavors that would appeal to her wine-lover's palate. "I was surprised when Melkon started picking out produce at our local farmers market while I shopped for our meals," says Litty. "Then he started infusing them in Mason jars next to my pickles." Melkon bottled his modest experiments—with ingredients like pears, lavender and vanilla—embel- lishing them with a well-designed label and took them to the family parties. After Litty started partak- ing and happily participating in the family toasts, the cousins started swiping bottles to show off to their friends. When their friends started calling to get their own bottles, the couple knew they were onto something. "It turned out, I wasn't the only fan," says Litty. "What appealed to everyone was the taste of real food—because that's what gave our home projects flavor, not commercial flavorings." In 2004, they started their company with a tight- knit group of other makers and began to scale their operation using the same techniques and whole ingredients as at home. "We were the 37th or 38th small distillery," notes Melkon. "Now there are more than 800 of us around the country." Greenbar has a refreshing take on making spirits in an era when most craft distillers are unearthing lost family recipes and recreating days gone by. "Our goal is creating unique, memorable flavors using every technique at our disposal—old, cur- rent, invented in-house or borrowed from another industry," says Melkon. "Nothing but taste really matters to us." This focus on absolute flavor delivered consistently gets tricky with the company's reliance on whole, On tours of Greenbar Craft Distillery in Downtown L.A., participants can take a whiff of the spices that go into the finished products. Unlike many craft distilleries, Greenbar invested in an automated bottling line to free up staff and simplify the organic coding process.

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