We're Not Crying Over Spilt Milk

It began when Jason Somerby, co-owner of New Alchemy Distilling, noticed the rise of the canned cocktail, and thought it would be a natural brand extension. After sampling the competition, they found that most of the canned drinks were mere shadows of the cocktails they purported to be. Most were either loaded with artificial flavors and preservatives, or they were essentially La Croix spiked with malt liquor.

“We started doing a ton of experiments to understand what makes canned cocktails taste so bad, but also to understand what factors drive companies to make the manufacturing decisions they do,” says Somerby, who wanted to create a version that was as vibrant as you would get at a bar with nothing artificial.

“To understand why canned cocktails are so often so mediocre, we started out by talking with a ton of bartenders. Many of the best bars have experimented with batching a subset or portions of the ingredients they use to serve cocktails to their clientele every evening. Years and years of experimentation taught bartenders what the canned cocktail industry was learning the hard way: Certain ingredients don’t stay fresh.”

Citrus is the principal culprit whose flavor degrades the most, yet citrus is the key ingredient in many cocktails, including Margaritas, French 75s and Cosmopolitans. Luckily, there are many scientifically minded people involved at New Alchemy: Somerby and his wife, Chandra, came from the medical field; his cousin DJ Boyle has a chemistry background; and Matt Sweeney and his wife, Kim Sweeney, both have backgrounds in molecular biology and biochemistry.

As they went to work researching a way to stabilize citrus flavors, they also stumbled onto clarified milk punch, a method of creating shelf-stable drinks from the 1700s that uses milk, alcohol and citrus. The acidity of the citrus curdles the milk, which separates the solids from the cocktail, including color. Clarified milk punch cocktails are known for their clarity, and also for creamy mouthfeel and their ability to soften and meld bitter flavors.

During the research and development stage, it became clear that the price of the quality milk they wanted to use was going to make a clarified milk punch cocktail prohibitively expensive. When they realized that the component of the milk they actually needed for the cocktail was the whey—the liquid left over from cheesemaking—and not the complete milk, they reached out to friends at Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company.

The cheese at Point Reyes Farmstead is made from organic milk that comes from their own dairy cattle, grazed on the lush rolling hills of West Marin. A bonus to the Point Reyes Farmstead whey is that it shares the same terroir as the cheese.

Kuba Hemmerling, VP of operations, says the whey used by New Alchemy comes from production of their Toma cheese, which is mild and lets the character of the milk shine through.

“The whey from Toma smells like fresh milk with a hint of fresh cheese curds—sweet, milky flavor with a little lactic note,” says Hemmerling.

The final canned cocktail is a partnership between the distillery and the Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company. It combines the distillery’s Fleurette Gin with Point Reyes Farmstead’s whey, house-made citrus amaro, fresh orange and lemon juices and bergamot tea. Out of the can the drink is a faint yellow, blooming with orange, citrus and faint cream aromas. The taste is where the richness of the milk comes out: not buttery or outright “milky” but contributing a silky texture and light dairy flavor.

It’s worth the effort to shake the canned cocktail with ice as it pours a snowy white color with velvety foam, or serve it on the rocks for an equally simple sip. It tastes even better knowing that 5% of profits go to supporting the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), which ensures that the local ecology is preserved for native species and watersheds.

Lou Bustamante is the author of two cocktail books and has written for San Francisco Chronicle, SevenFifty Daily, and Wine & Spirits Magazine among others. @thevillagedrunk