by Amy Stewart
the american experiment
With such a remarkable and diverse wine-making tradition, it must have been difficult for Europeans to set sail for a continent that might or might not have been suitable for grape growing. Early vineyards failed, which is why the Founding Fathers imported their wine or drank homemade brews made from grains, corn, apples, and molasses. Thomas Jefferson in particular spent lavishly on French wine and tried to find a native American grapevine suitable for wine making for his garden at Monticello. Neither the native nor the European varieties he planted ever produced a drop of decent wine.
What went wrong? The native varieties simply weren’t suited for wine making—but more about that in a minute. The failure of the European vines was the real mystery. What Jefferson didn’t know—and what no one knew until later in the nineteenth century—was that sturdy American grapevines were resistant to attacks by a tiny, aphidlike pest called phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae) that was also native to America. European grapes had no such resistance, which explained why imported vines planted in American soil withered.
Before anyone realized this, however, Americans had sent a gift of native grapevines to France. Unfortunately, those vines were infested with phylloxera. They went right to work attacking the vineyards. This tiny American pest went on to devastate the French wine industry in the nineteenth century.
At first, no one knew what was killing the vines. In fact, it took decades to simply understand the creature, much less find a way to kill it. Its life cycle was unlike anything scientists had ever seen. First, a generation of female phylloxera are born that never mate, never go on a single date, but are capable of giving birth anyway. The next generation is the same way, and the next, so that one generation of females is born after another. When, once a year, a batch of males finally emerge, they exist only to mate and die. The poor creatures are not even given a digestive tract; the males will not enjoy a single meal in their short, sex-filled lives. Once their job is complete, the females continue without them for several more generations. Their habitat changes, too: during one stage of their life cycle they induce the leaves to form galls—protective plant growths that hide the creatures—and during another stage they vanish underground to attack the roots.
By the time the phylloxera was finally understood, France’s wine industry was nearly obliterated. Salvation came from the very plant that had caused the problem in the first place: the resilient American grapevine. Grafting fine old European vines to the rough-and-tumble American rootstock allowed the winemakers to replant and bring their industry back, although they worried that the flavor would suffer. Most wine connoisseurs would agree that French wines have done quite well in spite of the setback, but they still seek out “pre-phylloxera wines,” made from those pockets of European vines that managed to survive on their own roots. Chile, for instance, produces pre-phylloxera wine because Spanish missionaries brought the grapes there, but the phylloxera never arrived.
Because wine was in short supply during the outbreak, absinthe became the drink of choice in cafes. Rumors of its toxicity are greatly exaggerated: while it is flavored with wormwood (Artemisia absinthium), it was never the plant itself that drove drinkers crazy. It was the extremely high alcohol content. Absinthe was bottled at about 70 percent ABV, almost twice as high as brandy. Whatever the reason for its perceived social ills, the winemakers were all too happy to join the French temperance movement in advocating for a type of prohibition that would ban absinthe but protect wine, which was seen as a healthy and moral drink.
Although the French wine industry recovered, American farmers were still trying to figure out how to make good wine from native American grapes. The difficulty had to do with the genetics of the grape itself. While the European V. vinifera enjoyed almost ten thousand years of selection by humans, who chose larger, tastier fruit and favored hermaphrodite vines over dioecious vines, very little human selection seems to have taken place in North America. Instead, the birds did it. They selectively picked blue-skinned varieties, an unattractive color for wine, because they could see them better—and they chose small fruit over large because they could eat it in one bite.
So even though V. riparia, one of the most widespread native American species, is remarkably cold-hardy and resists pests and disease, that small, blue fruit did not impress winemakers as much as it impressed the birds. After three hundred years of experimentation, American botanists are only just now figuring out how to turn native grapes into wine. University of Minnesota researchers have crossed V. riparia with European vines to produce new varieties, like Frontenac and Marquette, that yield surprisingly good wines, even in that cold northern climate. They are sturdy, robust and quite drinkable wines with just a hint of the wild herbaceousness that makes them uniquely American.
STRANGE RELATIONS
Carole P. Meredith, professor emerita at the University of California, Davis, Department of Viticulture and Enology, has analyzed the genetics of some of the most popular wine grapes and determined their parentage. The results? Cabernet Sauvignon is the child of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc. An old variety called Traminer gave birth to Pinot Noir, which in turn mated with an old peasant grape called Gouais Blanc to produce Chardonnay. These couplings probably happened by accident in seventeenth-century French vineyards, well before vintners used modern plant breeding techniques.
AROMATIZED WINES REVEALED
Even the most adventurous wine drinkers might not have explored the remarkable world of aromatized wines. These wines have herbs, fruit, or other flavors added, and might also be fortified with additional alcohol. Vermouth is the best-known example; if you don’t believe that a glass of vermouth can be lovely on its own, try some of these. Just remember that, like other wines, they will spoil quickly and should be refrigerated after opening. The extra alcohol content helps them last a little longer than wine, but drink them within a month or so.
Mistelle: A mixture of unfermented or partially fermented grape juice and alcohol, sometimes used as the base for aromatized wines. Try these:
• Bonal Gentiane Quina: A mistelle base flavored with gentian and quinine. Very good on its own or as a substitute for red vermouth in cocktails.
• Pineau des Charentes: A nonaromatized, barrel-aged mistelle with Cognac. Made in southwestern France. Unforgettable.
Quinquina: Fortified wines with quinine and other flavors added. Two fine examples are:
• Cocchi Americano: An Italian quinine, herb, and citrus-infused fortified wine used in classic cocktails but perfect on its own.
• Lillet: A blend of Bordeaux wines, citrus peel, quinine, fruit liqueur, and other spices. Available in blanc, rouge, and rosé styles. All three are enchanting.
Vermouth: Made of wine fortified with alcohol, along with wormwood, herbs, and sugar. Bottled at 14.5 to 22 percent ABV. These two will make a vermouth drinker of you:
• Dolin Blanc Vermouth de Chambéry: Halfway between a dry and sweet vermouth, the Dolin Blanc is a fine, balanced blend of fruit, floral, and pleasantly bitter notes. Drink it over ice with a twist of lemon.
• Punt e Mes: A wonderfully rich, sophisticated red aromatized wine with dried fruit and sherry flavors that is also good enough to drink on its own. Consider it a more complex and grown-up substitute for sweet vermouth.
PISCO SOUR
This is Peru’s national cocktail.
1½ ounces pisco
¾ ounce fresh-squeezed lemon or lime juice
¾ ounce simple syrup
1 egg white
Angostura bitters
Shake all the ingredients except the bitters in a cocktail shaker without ice for at least 10 seconds. The “dry shake” makes the drink foamy. Then add ice and shake for at least 45 seconds more. Pour into a cocktail glass and sprinkle a few drops of bitters on top.
GRAPE-BASED SPIRITS AROUND THE WORLD
Brandy is the generic term for a wine (or other fruit) spirit, usually distilled to 80 percent alcohol or less, then bottled at 35 to
40 percent alcohol. Types of grape brandy include:
Aguardiente: Portuguese brandy. This term also describes neutral grape spirits.
Armagnac: Made in the nearby Armagnac region. Unlike Cognac, which is made in pot stills, Armagnac is made in a continuous still called an alembic, at a lower proof. Both are made from specific varieties of grapes, then aged in oak.
Arzente: Italian brandy.
Brandy de Jerez: This and other spirits simply labeled “brandy” come from Spain.
Cognac: Made in France’s Cognac region.
Metaxa: Greek brandy.
Eau-de-vie is a higher-proof clear spirit made from fruit; when it is made from the pomace (skins, stems, seeds and other remnants of wine fermentation), it is called pomace brandy, or:
Bagaceira in Portugal; Grappa in Italy; Marc in France; Orujo in Spain; Trester in Germany; Tsikoudia in Greece
Grape-based gin is any grape vodka infused with juniper and other botanicals. G’Vine is a French gin made from the same grapes used in Cognac, plus an extract of just-opened grapevine blossoms and other herbs and spices.
Grape vodka is a high-proof, unaged spirit like an eau-de-vie, intended to be of a neutral character. A fine example is St. George Spirit’s Hangar One Vodka, made from a blend of Viognier grapes and wheat; the grapes give it the lightest possible essence of fruit. Ciroc, made from French grapes, is another popular brand.
Pisco is named after the port city of Pisco, Peru, where eighteenth-century voyagers stopped to stock up on the local spirit. It matures in glass or stainless steel, not oak. In Peru, it is bottled at full strength, ranging from 38 to 48 percent alcohol. Chileans make a version using different grape varieties and some wood maturation.
Acholado comes from a blend of grape varieties.
Musto verde is distilled from partially fermented grape stems, seeds, and skins.
Pisco puro is made from a single variety of grape.
POTATO
Solanum tuberosum
solanaceae (nightshade family)
On June 3, 1946, a headline in the New York Times read, “Potato May Avert Drinkers’ Drought.” Wartime grain shortages had been hard on beer and whiskey drinkers. The Agriculture Department had diverted grain to more important uses: food, livestock feed, and the production of industrial alcohol for rubber manufacturing. Restrictions continued after the war as troops wound down their operations and relief shipments to devastated postwar Europe got under way.
Because of the shortages, distilleries were allotted a single ten-day mashing period per month, with limits on the amount of rye or other grains that could go into the mash. With so little raw material to work with, the distillers got creative. They asked for a share of the nation’s heavily rationed potato supply, explaining that they could put the lower-grade, smaller, misshapen potatoes to use in making blended whiskies, gins, or cordials while saving the higher-quality potatoes for food. This move, the Agricultural Department pointed out, could “change the drinking habits of Americans and make popular such potato drinks as vodka.”
At the time, vodka was virtually unknown to American drinkers. In 1946, Americans drank only one million gallons of vodka, less than 1 percent of all spirits consumed in the country. By 1965, that number had grown to thirty million. Vodka has always been made of rye, wheat, and other grains in addition to potatoes, but Americans nonetheless thought of the spirit as an exotic, specifically potato-based drink.
incan treasure
The potato traces its ancestry to Peru. Wild potatoes (Solanum maglia and S. berthaultii) grew along the western coast of South America at least thirteen thousand years ago, when glaciers still covered higher elevation areas. By 8000 BC, the glaciers were receding and the coast became more dry and desertlike, so people moved up to higher elevations. It was there, in the Andes mountain range, that early Peruvians cultivated potatoes. Growing conditions were difficult and unpredictable—weather changed quickly on the rocky slopes—so thousands of different cultivars were grown, each with its own ecological niche.
The first Spaniards to encounter the Inca empire in 1528 found an astonishingly sophisticated civilization. A road system spanning more than fourteen thousand miles, highly advanced architecture, a system of taxation and public works projects, and thoroughly modern farming techniques made the Inca Empire comparable to the Roman Empire. Francisco Pizarro and his men were so dazzled by the Inca’s gold and jewels that the grubby potato hardly seemed worth picking up. It was a few more decades before the potato was grown in Europe, and it was not widely cultivated as a food crop until later in the seventeenth century.
Europeans didn’t trust the potato because it was a member of the dangerous nightshade family. Old World members of this family, including henbane and deadly nightshade, were highly toxic. That gave them reason to fear all the nightshades they found in the New World, including potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. (They were equally suspicious of eggplant, a nightshade native to India.) And in fact, the potato plant does bloom and produce small, poisonous fruit similar to that of other nightshades. Even the starchy tubers can accumulate toxic levels of the alkaloid solanine if exposed to light; this is a defensive reaction designed to protect a vulnerable, unearthed potato from predators.
Because it was a nightshade, and because it was eaten by so-called primitive people in South America, potatoes were seen at best as a commodity to be fed to slaves and at worse as a dirty, evil root that caused scrofula and rickets. The fact that the Irish embraced the potato only helped convince the English that it was a lowly food fit only for a peasant. Nonetheless, it did eventually become established throughout Europe. Explorers also took it to Asia, Africa, and to the new colonies in North America.
the birth of vodka
Ask people today about the invention of vodka, and you might hear that it is made from potatoes and that it comes from Russia. Neither statement is entirely true. Vodka was already being distilled from grains long before the potato ever arrived in Europe. The birthplace of vodka is the subject of endless dispute between Russia and Poland, with each claiming the spirit as its own. What is known for certain is that a clear, high-proof spirit distilled from grain was made throughout the region by the 1400s. The Polish term wodki, meaning “little waters,” was used by Stefan Falimirz in his 1523 medical text On Herbs and Their Powers, long before potatoes could have been used in wodki. They were only just being discovered in Latin America at that time and had not yet reached Europe.
By the eighteenth century, potatoes were a staple food crop in eastern Europe, and distillers were experimenting with them as early as 1760. Those early trials must have been difficult. Potatoes, after all, are merely thickened stems that grow underground and store food and water for the next generation. Unlike the starch in grain, the starch in a potato is not intended to be converted to sugar all at once to feed a germinating seed. Instead, it is released slowly, over a long growing season, to nourish a young plant. This is a brilliant survival strategy for the potato, but it doesn’t help the distiller.
A Polish pamphlet called The Perfect Distiller and Brewer, published in 1809, described the process of distilling vodka from potatoes, with the warning that it was the worst kind of vodka, behind vodka made from sugar beets, grains, apples, grapes, and acorns. In fact, potatoes only became a common ingredient in Polish vodka because they were cheap and abundant, not because they made a high-quality spirit. They tended to turn into a thick, sticky paste in the fermentation tank, the starch was not easy to convert to sugar, and they produced higher levels of toxic methanol and fusel oils. Russian vodka makers looked down on cheap Polish potato vodkas; to this day, they insist that the best vodka is made from rye or wheat instead.
SWEET POTATO
Ipomoea batatas
convolvulaceae (morning glory family)
The sweet potato is not really a potato at all—it is the root of a climbing vine closely related to the morning glory. And, by the way, it has nothing to do with the yam, which is a starchy
root in the Dioscorea genus grown in Africa. (While Americans have traditionally called soft, orange sweet potatoes yams, true yams are almost never sold in the United States.)
Sweet potatoes are native to Central America and traveled around the world courtesy of European explorers. One of the earliest alcoholic beverages made from the spirit was mobbie, a fermented drink of sweet potatoes, water, lemon juice, and sugar, which was described in Barbados as early as 1652. It was a popular “small beer” for over a century, until a plague of sweet potato beetles wiped out the crop. Sugarcane plantations took over sweet potato fields and rum became the drink of choice.
Brazilians also made a fermented drink of the tubers, called caowy. It wasn’t much to Europeans’ liking: writing in 1902, American winemaker Edward Randolph Emerson said that the Portuguese improved the drink’s flavor by renaming it vinho d’batata, “which sounds much better and sometimes there is a lot in a name.”
The best-known sweet potato spirit is Japanese shochu, a distilled beverage of up to 35 percent alcohol that can be made from sweet potatoes, rice, buckwheat, and other ingredients. Korean soju is also sometimes made of sweet potatoes.
Throughout Asia, “sweet potato wine” refers to a homebrew not too different from what the islanders drank in Barbados. A sweet potato beer is made in North Carolina and in Japan, and sweet potato vodkas are just coming on the market.
artisanal potatoes
By the time American distillers were applying to use surplus potatoes for their whiskey blends in 1946, vodka was poised for a comeback. The troops returning home from Europe had done a little drinking in foreign lands. They were ready to try something new. With the postwar prosperity came a new era in cocktail drinking. Mixed drinks like the Moscow Mule and the Bloody Mary won over drinkers who liked vodka as a neutral, all-purpose mixer. Whether it was made of grain or potatoes didn’t matter so much. During the last half of the twentieth century, vodka became the spirit of choice for cocktails.
