Fermenti's Paradox: Accelerating Tradition

SCOTT FEUILLE OF TAYLOR GARRETT SPIRITS BRINGS NEW TECHNIQUES AND LOCAL GRAINS TO ALBUQUERQUE'S GROWING CRAFT DISTILLERY COMMUNITY

By Joshua Johnson · Photos by Stephanie Cameron

Copper stills at VARA Winery & Distillery.

Fried zucchini served with Taylor Garrett whiskey.

One of Albuquerque’s newest distillers, Scott Feuille of Taylor Garrett Spirits, has a bourbon mash-bill whiskey, and a unique method of making it, that has created a buzz among New Mexico’s whiskey lovers. Counting myself as one, I stopped by the tasting room at VARA Winery & Distillery, where Taylor Garrett Spirits has partnered and fired up its still. Sharply dressed and clean-cut, Feuille, a career pilot and retired naval aviator, greeted me at a dining table where he and his VARA colleagues had laid out an impressive sampling of their food and drink offerings. Three screen-printed whiskey bottles sat in flight formation atop a nearby table.

He handed me a glass. With a rich mahogany color and a nose of toasted oak, vanilla, maple syrup, and corn, I was transported twentyfive years back in time to a scent memory of ripsawing oak boards in my grandfather’s basement. I was shocked to learn that this whiskey was only six days in the making—less than one one-hundredth of the time required to age the youngest traditional Straight Bourbons.

Read the rest of the story in our Spring Issue on Issuu.