Formerly Dancing Tree Distillery
Dancing Tree Distillery is changing its name to Fifth Element Spirits in the next couple of weeks. This is after managing Dancing Tree, LLC as an egg/meat bird farm, orchard, sorghum plantation, hunting grounds, silage producer and a property rental company, since Feb 2005 and as a distillery since Feb 2010. We are saddened that Dancing Pines Distillery in Colorado, which was established in Oct 2009, has decided our name causes confusion in the marketplace and that we must cease and desist or continue spending our profits to fight the good fight. This timing is as good as it gets for a name change, as we are working on a new Ciderhouse venture in Athens Ohio as well, called the West End Ciderhouse. More on the Ciderhouse in a bit, but for now I’ll give you the lowdown on the new products you can look forward to in the near future from “Fifth Element Spirits”.
Some Updates
We have a small tree farm here at Dancing Tree Orchards, which supplied us with a couple of hundred gallons of cider this year, most of which was fermented and distilled into a nice apple brandy and is now aging in used bourbon barrels which were the original bourbon barrels from Dancing Tree Distillery. I’m thinking this Apple Brandy may be ready mid to late 2014.
I received a nice supply of Chardonnay grape pommace from Shade Winery this year and fermented it out into a nice “small” wine. This I then distilled into a Grappa which is now aging in the same batch of 15-gallon barrels taken from our dumped bourbon barrels. This Chardonnay Grappa may also be ready mid to late 2014. This is related to our Vidal Vodka, but pulled off the still at a lower alcohol percentage and more flavor!
Our Sorghum Rum will be out this year in 750ml bottles, all the sorghum was grown here at Dancing Tree Farm.
The Bourbon I have mentioned is aging nicely now in 53-gallon barrels. Initially, it sat quietly in new, 15-gallon, #3 Char, American white oak barrels. After 4 months the wood character was enough, but it wasn’t aged, meaning that oxygen had not performed her magic just yet. It is now in used barrels soakin’ up the air. I’ll keep you posted on the time frame for that. But meanwhile, I have a couple more new 53 gallon barrels filled with new make, chilling in the solar rick-house next to the original baby barrels. Time is in charge of the bottling date on these as well.
Our Elderberry Brandy is still available from the 2012 harvest and makes a mean Elderberry Sour!
The Pawpaw Brandy is all but gone. A few lucky souls may talk me into selling a 375ml for $69.
The Vidal harvest was nice this year. I fermented around 1200 gallons of Vidal pommace must, and should get around 120 cases of the 2013 Vidal Vodka! Vidal is a beautiful French/American hybrid, white wine grape. This grape is pressed before fermentation so as not to extract too much tannin from the skins. I love to drink this small wine as is, but choose to distill it into well known local vodka!
Of course, we are continuing the production of our 2013 Award-Winning Spicebush Gin and Coffee Liquor!
– Kelly
Note: This blog post originally appeared on the website of Dancing Tree Distillery, which became Fifth Element Spirits, and has now become West End Ciderworks & Distillery.
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