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n this edition of In The Weeds we’re going to have a little history lesson. We are heading over to 110 and 112 Riberia Street, what used to be one address now is two. This was a necessity for what currently stands there to work at the time of opening. Let’s go back a few years, shall we?
Built in 1905 as Florida’s first power and ice complex, both being relatively new to be so readily available. Ice was an incredibly necessary commodity to the fleets of shrimp boats that worked these waters so that they could store and ship their fresh seafood, the demand was 125 tons of ice a day. Move forward a hundred years and you have this fabulous historic building that was just the right size to make a dream come true, the St. Augustine Distillery at one address and The Ice Plant bar and bottle shop next door. So here you have a bustling distillery, producing vodka, gin, rum, and Florida’s first legal bourbon since prohibition. Distillery tours run every half hour, it has been named the number one whisky distillery tour in the US. With tastings conducted on the bottle shop side and Saint Augustine’s most noteworthy craft cocktail bar upstairs. Then in the belly of the beast you find with every passing tour coming through, he
has a quick wit and a welcoming personality, Saint Augustine’s own Bourbon Baron, Clark M. Gilmore. We caught up with Clark and asked our usual panel of interview questions. LOF How did you get started in the business? Clark I started off in retail and did that for a while and wound up working at a liquor store. All of a sudden people started asking questions about the products that we sold and so that’s where I got a lot of my product knowledge and started making all kinds of different drinks. After building up a certain amount of knowledge the next thing that made sense was to work at the local distillery and I wound up at St. Augustine Distilling. LOF I think it was Albert Einstein that said "if you can't explain it simply, maybe you don't understand it well enough" Clark Exactly! One of the things that I learned from Dave Pickerel is the best way to bring someone to your level of understanding is to relate it to things that are familiar to the masses; baking, cooking, cocktails and distilling are not that much different. You connect the pieces, and go from there. No matter how good you are there are concepts that you relate to everyday life. LOF Well I would say that distilling is closer to baking, it is a science, you don't get all of the ingredients right, you run into trouble. Okay Clark, what is your go-to drink order? Clark It really depends more on the season than anything. In the winter time I really like my bitters heavy old fashioned, in the summer though I love a good gold rush. I’m not a big fan of running to the liquor sore for a half dozen ingredients. A gold rush is just super easy. I always have honey and lemon juice. I ALWAYS have bourbon (he chuckled). Other than that I love a good New York sour, the citrus and the dry red wine. When I am feeling a little bit fancier I like a boulevardier… I love those. LOF I’m more of a situational drinker. If I’m at a ballgame, I’m drinking beer. Okay so we just talked about some cocktail modifiers, so here is the question: Deserted island you get three bottles, unlimited supply of those three? Clark Three bottles of anything, lets see… I would have to say sweet vermouth, there is an Italian liquor that I really like called Bollini and probably a wheated bourbon. LOF Well, there you go, so you have boulevardier riffs and manhattan riffs Clark Plus some stuff to ease the tummy a little bit, that Bolliini
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