You need a drink!

Cascade Golfer’s Summer Cocktail Stars are Local Legends

BY TONY DEAR • CG EDITOR

It’s a hot summer day, and you’ve spent an enjoyable, but exhausting, afternoon in the yard. You’ve mowed the lawn, trimmed edges (and hedges), pruned bushes, and dug up weeds. The yard is looking so much better, but it’s been backbreaking work. Or, more likely perhaps, you’ve come off the 18th green having walked four miles in the heat. It was fun — it always is — and you’re not unhappy with your score. But you’re done, mentally and physically. What you need is to recline with a refreshing summer cocktail. Fortunately, we know a couple of Seattle-based (well, Edmonds specifically) experts who have just the thing to revive your mind, body, and spirit. And our two guest bartenders have a quartet of drinks they believe will be perfect for those hot summer days.

Scratch Distillery’s Kim & Bryan Karrick

Bryan Karrick and Kim Lenhardt met at Michigan State University in the late 1980s. Kim says gin was involved on their first date, but Bryan doesn’t remember. What they do both recall though is that as their relationship blossomed so did their love for gin.

The couple married in 1992 and, two years later, arrived in Washington keen to indulge their other passion — outdoor activities. “We lived near Snoqualmie Pass,” says Kim, “and owned and operated a small eye clinic (Bryan was an optometrist by profession) in North Bend. Another optometrist that Bryan knew well courted him and eventually persuaded him to join his big practice in Edmonds.”

That was 2002, and the Karricks have been living on the Sound ever since.

After moving to the north Seattle suburb, Kim worked in wineries, brewed beer and, having loved gin for a good long while, committed to making the stuff her own way. That meant creating it from scratch using only organic, non-GMO, locally-sourced ingredients. After years of research and experimenting, Kim opened Scratch Distillery, and began producing gin for real, in 2015. The tasting room opened just 15 months later. “We created all our products from local grain, mashed, fermented, and distilled onsite,” she says. “And we shared our passion for gin-making from the start with our GINiology class in which attendees get to create their own recipe.”

Bryan still owns Edmonds Eyecare Associates, and will probably stay on for another six years before retiring, Kim says, to a life of “labelling bottles and washing glassware”.

Now firmly established, Scratch Distillery has begun producing other spirits and vapor-infusing different flavors into gins and vodkas. It distilled its first whiskey four and a half years ago, and released it in 2018. “I was interested in creating a whiskey from less common old-world grains, and not trying for the biggest yield,” says Kim. “This gives it a cleaner, softer, more layered flavor, without having to age as long as some people think necessary.”

Be sure to visit Scratch Distillery at 190 Sunset Ave. in Edmonds, to sample its growing list of superb spirits, and even create your own gin.

Joey’s Bright and Bitter

By Scratch Distillery

INGREDIENTS

• 1.5 oz. Scratch Amo Pocio Amaro

• 1 oz. Freshly squeezed grapefruit juice • .5 oz. Sage simple syrup

• 1 splash Club soda • 1 Sage leaf

INSTRUCTIONS

• Shake and strain over ice.

• Top with club soda. • Garnish with a sage leaf.

Smoked Sage Southie

By Scratch Distillery

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz. Scratch Barrel Finished Pepper Vodka

• 1 oz. Freshly squeezed lemon juice

• .75 oz. Sage simple syrup

• 1 Sage leaf garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

• Shake vodka, juice, syrup with ice then strain into coupe glass.

• Garnish with sage leaf.

Crafter’s Cocktail Comment

“Both these cocktails are great in the summer, while being very different, and take advantage of making a fresh Sage simple syrup,” says Karrick. “I love using fresh botanicals from the garden. The Joey’s Bright and Bitter is super-refreshing, while also a bit complex. And the Smoked Sage Southie is quite tart and smokey — almost like a daytime cocktail, and perhaps one for the fire pit in the evening. Though I love them both anytime.”

Master of mixology Niles Peacock

Joining the Karricks in Edmonds later this year will be noted restaurateur and award-winning mixologist Niles Peacock who is all set to open his new restaurant in the Salish Crossing Complex on Sunset Ave. (just a few doors down from Scratch Distillery) in July.

“I love Edmonds — it’s a great community to live in and be a part of.” says the man whose jazz bassist father named him after Miles Davis. “Many of my father’s friends were naming their sons Miles after Miles Davis so, to be different, my parents went with Niles. Leave it to the artists to name you after someone and change the spelling.”

Born on a tobacco farm in Kyoto, Japan, Peacock grew up in Wallingford but went to boarding school in Stockbridge, Mass. From there, he moved to New York City to study fashion design at Parsons School of Design. While in Manhattan, he began working in restaurants, fell in love with the business and has never really left it.

Peacock, who admits to not playing golf, has opened bars and restaurants in New York City, Miami Beach, Aspen, Las Vegas, and Seattle, and is currently preparing his new Edmonds location by completing the interior, training staff, working on new recipes and working on releasing more cocktail videos (check out his previous vlogs on YouTube). He’s also doing a lot of volunteer work, training at the gym, and spending time with his family — “basically what I’d be normally doing just a lot more of it,” he says.

Voted KING 5’s Best Bartender in Western Washington in 2018 while directing the bar program at the now closed 190 Sunset here in Edmonds, Peacock says he has developed a good track record for craft cocktails, adding that his bar team are also skilled craft mixologists. “But we take our pizza seriously too,” he says. “We make our dough from scratch, in house daily, and have a loyal following of pizza lovers as well as craft cocktail aficionados.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cascade Golfer says it’s advisable to get your ingredients together before heading out. You don’t want to be making a simple syrup or going to the store for pamplemousse liqueur when you’re tired. You can even mix the drink early and leave it cooling in the fridge for later.

The Rosemary Gimlet

By Niles Peacock

INGREDIENTS

• 2 oz. Scratch Distillery G & T Style Gin (infused by resting 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary in the bottle for 24hrs or longer for more intensity) • 1.25 oz. Fresh Lime Juice • .75 oz. Simple Syrup

INSTRUCTIONS

• Shake all ingredients over ice, and double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

• Garnish with rosemary skewered blueberry-

Miss Pamplemousse

By Niles Peacock

INGREDIENTS

• 4 oz. Francois Montand Blanc De Blanc Brut (or other dry sparkling wine or champagne)

• 1 oz. Giffard Pamplemousse

• .5 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice

INSTRUCTIONS

• Pour all ingredients over ice and stir.

• Garnish with an orange peel.

Crafter’s Cocktail Comment

“This is a spin on a bright, crisp classic”, Peacock says of the Rosemary Gimlet. And the Miss Pampelmousse is one of his original warm-weather drinks recipes. “It’s a well-balanced, sparkling, brut cocktail and perfect for refreshing on a hot summer’s day, or after a round of golf.”