Colin Keegan in his downtown Santa Fe tasting room

Colin Keegan, founder of Santa Fe Spirits, didn’t set out to be a distiller. He worked for years as an architect, and was working as such on a local property containing an apple orchard. The deal fell through, fortunately for us, and Keegan and his wife ended up buying the home themselves.

Faced with a surfeit of apples, Keegan pressed his harvest into juice, which he then pressed into the hands of as many friends and neighbors as he could. He did not succeed in getting rid of all the juice, however, and he tried his hand at making hard cider. But even then, there was still too much cider to store, and Keegan distilled the remainder into apple brandy.

When the economic downturn hit, Keegan decided it was time to reevaluate. Because of his success with his apple brandy, he turned his hand from architecture to full-time distilling, and Santa Fe Spirits was born.

Now, Keegan has expanded into a building he owns in downtown Santa Fe, the former site of a nail salon. It offers a range of intriguing cocktails created with the various Santa Fe Spirits spirits, as well as tastings of their entire line of products. After chatting with the personable Mr. Keegan, I got down to business. Would Santa Fe Spirits compare favorably to Koval, Few and North Shore, my favorite hometown craft distilleries?

Expedition Vodka: Talk to almost any distiller, and you’ll find that vodka is not their passion — vodkas on their own have little flavor. But the distributor of Santa Fe Spirits suggested a vodka was needed to round out the product line, and Keegan obliged with this six-times distilled corn-based spirit. (Santa Fe Spirits actually purchases a vodka that has been distilled five times, and distills it once morethemselves.) The result has a clean and lightly fruity aroma, with a very smooth texture. The alcoholic bite takes its time to build, increasing slowly and steadily. A very classy vodka, and surely a fine neutral cocktail base. If I had to assign it a flavor, it reminded me, subtly, of honeydew melon.

Silver Coyote Pure Malt Whiskey: I am generally not a big fan of white (unaged) whiskies. I find them fascinating to taste, but the idea of an entire glass usually seems like a bit much. This 92-proof malt-based spirit changed my mind. Keegan pointed out that 100% of the distillate for this whiskey is intended only for this whiskey — none of it is diverted into aged products. That means only pure hearts (the best part of the distillate) end up in the Silver Coyote. It has a round and fresh aroma, and an appealing caramel note on the palate followed immediately by a burst of spice.

Colkegan Single Malt Whiskey: With this whiskey, Santa Fe Spirits emulates the production process used by makers of scotch, employing smoked barley and used bourbon barrels for aging. But this whiskey has an undeniably local character imparted by the use of mesquite to smoke the malt, rather than peat. I could sense it in the aroma, which had notes of smoke and vanilla, as well as a bit of something red, like good Hungarian paprika. It definitely reminded me of a smooth and dusky scotch, but again, there was a unique red note underneath, no doubt due to that smart decision to use mesquite.

Apple Brandy: The spirit which started the company ought to be memorable, and it proved to be one of my favorites of the tasting. I enjoyed the aromas of vanilla and overripe apples, and I loved rich texture leavened with a bang of zesty spice. A worthy calvados competitor.

Wheeler’s Gin: With the profusion of juniper growing around Santa Fe, Santa Fe Spirits would be crazy not to make a gin. This elegant spirit uses four additional local botanicals: cholla cactus blossoms, cascade hops, white desert sage and osha root, all sourced from within a 30-mile radius. This is a gin with serious terroir, and I’m kicking myself now that I didn’t bring home a bottle. After a smooth start, the botanicals kick in, most notably the juniper and the desert sage. There was a savory note underneath as well, perhaps from the cascade hops. Smooth, complex and lively, this gin would make one mean martini.

That’s five for five. What an unexpected pleasure, to taste these well-crafted spirits which exhibited real local character.

I had the opportunity to drink a number of thoroughly delightful tipples while in Charleston, South Carolina, and one of the best things I tasted was homemade. If you go to Charleston, and I certainly recommend that you do, give Laura Wichmann Hipp of Charleston Tea Party Private Tours a call. The tour isn’t inexpensive at $100 per person, but it’s worth every penny. She gives you wonderfully personalized, idiosyncratic insights into Charleston that only a lifelong resident could. How else would I have learned that “north side manners” dictate that you don’t linger at the windows on the north side of your home? If your neighbor’s yard and piazza (porch) are on the south side, Mrs. Hipp explained, staring out your northern windows infringes on your neighbor’s privacy.

But more important for the purposes of this blog, Mrs. Hipp also makes her own unique Loquat Liqueur by steeping loquats from her garden in vodka (see right). Now what the heck is a loquat? I thought it might be related to a kumquat, that tiny citrus fruit one eats whole, but the similar names are just a coincidence. Loquats are actually a variety of small stone fruit, which became immediately clear to me when I took a whiff of the liqueur.

It smelled to me like Prunelle, a marvelous plum-based French spirit with a distinctive amaretto aroma shared by the Loquat Liqueur. It tasted floral, sweet and lush, but it wasn’t just a syrup bomb — it had balance, ending with a note of spicy citrus peel. I loved it neat, but it also tasted delicious mixed with some warm apple cider.

For the moment, the only way to obtain the Loquat Liqueur is to head down to Laura’s well-kept Charleston home and pick some up yourself. But Mrs. Hipp has been in off-and-on talks with the owner of Firefly, a local distillery best-known for its Sweet Tea Vodka (mix it with lemonade for a mean Arnold Palmer). The distiller might just be interested in producing this wonderfully unusual liqueur, which would be great news for those of us not fortunate enough to call regularly on Mrs. Hipp.

Until then, I’m glad I brought a bottle home to Chicago, where loquats — in liqueur form or otherwise — are decidedly hard to come by. Every time I take a sip, I’ll be reminded of one of my loveliest days in Charleston.

Let me start by saying that I enjoyed my taste of VeeV, a clear spirit distilled from Idaho winter wheat. Alone, it tasted sweet and smooth, with a distinct berry note from the infusion of açaí. Shaken with fresh lime juice and sage leaves, the VeeV made for quite a delightful cocktail. The citrus cut through the inherent sweetness of the 60-proof liqueur, and the sage added an unexpected twist.

VeeV’s marketing campaign is a little harder to stomach. The brochure I received makes only one oblique reference to VeeV’s taste, focusing instead on the health benefits of the açaí berry, “the world’s preeminent superfruit,” according to the VeeV website. This Amazonian wonderberry is Oprah’s #1 superfood, a promotional brochure reassures us, with “57% more antioxidants than pomegranates.”

Never mind that clinical studies have failed to show that antioxidants prevent chronic diseases such as cancer or heart disease. And exactly how much of that big bottle of booze is actually açaí berry anyway?

The second half of the brochure’s cover goes on to tout the company’s green initiatives. VeeV (or rather, the consumer) donates $1 per bottle to rainforest preservation, wind power provides part of the distillery’s electricity and carbon offsets ensure that the company is carbon neutral. All of which is very admirable, if tangential to the flavor of the spirit.

So, basically, if you’re seeking a pseudo-health liqueur which goes out of its way to assuage your guilty consumer conscience, by all means, drink up. You can “Drink Better. Live Better. See how at veevlife.com.”

Personally, I prefer not to pretend that 60-proof alcohol is a health food. I think I’ll be getting advice on how to “live better” elsewhere.

VeeV: Available for $30 a bottle at Binny’s.

To make the cocktail described above, shake two parts VeeV (or berry-flavored vodka), one part fresh lime juice, a dash of simple syrup and two fresh sage leaves vigorously with ice. Strain in a martini glass, and garnish with a fresh sage leaf or a lime slice.

I had planned on simply going home after work, going to the gym, consuming a microwaved frozen burrito and going to bed. But an e-mail popped up in my inbox with the innocuous subject line: “Hello! Dinner?” It was from some friends we hadn’t seen in far too long, and they meant dinner tonight, and dinner at the most exciting restaurant in the city: Next. The gym could wait.

In case you’ve missed the blizzard of press, Next is the new restaurant of Grant Achatz, the internationally celebrated chef of Alinea, ranked by some as America’s best restaurant. When Chef Achatz actually met the exceedingly high expectations of the media and Alinea fans, what became a difficult reservation to secure became well-nigh impossible.

Needless to say, we jumped at the chance to go. Unfortunately, it was a casual day at work, and I had tossed on a pair of jeans and a three-year-old polo shirt. I made an emergency run to H&M at the mall at lunch and picked up a shirt and some khakis, costing a total of $32 (a small fraction of the price of one meal at Next). I hoped it would be dark, so that the fold marks wouldn’t show.

I should have been more worried about my underwear. The pants I hastily tried on were a bit too tight, and when I entered my car to head downtown, I ripped a hole in the crotch. Hooray for that H&M quality. I resolved, like a proper gentleman, to keep my legs together at all times throughout the evening.

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