New Old Boston : A Visit to Bully Boy Distillers

Bottles of Bully Boy "Boston Rum" being packaged at the distillery

Remarkably, for all the years I have spent in the business of selling booze, I had never been to a brewery, winery, or distillery. Just the other day I decided to change that with a visit to Boston's own Bully Boy Distillers. Hidden away in a nondescript aluminum garage, across the street from the back side of an elementary school no less, I may never have even found the place if it weren't for the  fact that the weather was warm and one of the doors was partially open, and I could see a stack of oak liquor barrels inside.

I've been familiar with Bully Boy spirits these last few years they've been on the market, selling them in the store. Initially only white spirits were available, as the "brown goods" as we call them take some time to age. I knew they were small and local and the liquor was good, so I was happy to recommend them. A few years later when a dark "Boston Rum" and an aged "American Straight Whiskey" hit the scene, I was hooked, being more of a brown goods guy myself. 

To call them "small batch" almost doesn't describe it. This place is tiny. A two door garage, divided into two rooms. On the right, a tasting bar, office, bottling and packaging line, and the still itself fill one room. 

In the other room, barrels of whiskey and rum line both walls, stacked to the ceiling. Large plastic fermenting tanks take up the center of the room, along with tanks of molasses and pallets of grain. In the foreground of this shot, a tank of molasses undergoes initial fermentation on its way to becoming rum, while another tank holds a fermenting "mash" of 45% corn, 45% rye, and 10% wheat that will become whiskey. It's a tight squeeze, but brothers Will and Dave Willis obviously run a clean, tight ship.

It all gets distilled in tiny batches on a German made copper still. Running the still for an entire day, Will tells me, yields only a few gallons of raw liquor. That's something to think about when considering the price of a good bottle.

Bully Boy's story is a good one, and as I speak with co-owner Will Willis his passion not only for craft distilling, but also for history, and the city of Boston, is clear. Will tell's me that Bully Boy started with an interest to bring back Boston's long lost but storied distilling tradition. He and his brother Dave grew up on a farm in Massachusetts, where they discovered an old family vault containing a rare collection of old liquor bottles, all locked up there apparently as a secret stash during prohibition. The name "Bully Boy" was the name of a favorite horse of his Grandfather's, and references not only Teddy Roosevelt, but also the old Bully Boys of Boston, the hard working folks who did the dirty work for Boston blue blood "Brahmin" society. The brothers take their cues form these old bottles, and offer a set of spirits that have a fun nod to history and an inherent "Boston"-ness about them, while still remaining unique and somewhat modern. All of this is offered at a very fair price at retail, no easy feat.

Old bottles found in vault at the farm. "Cow Whiskey"?!? Bully Boy used these as inspiration for the design of their own labels.

The white spirits all retail for roughly $30 per bottle, and are clean, direct expressions of their ingredients and the brothers attention to quality. The vodka is clean and bright, despite having been distilled only once rather than the multiple times common these days, proof you can get it right on the first try. The white rum has a glycerin texture and just the right sweetness without being heavy, great with tonic and lime. The white whiskey is perhaps similar to the vodka, but has more of a biscuit bread note to it. I've actually had it in a margarita in place of tequila and it was quite good.

The brown spirits are a whiff more expensive, but still quite reasonable at around $35. Their American Whiskey qualifies as neither Bourbon nor Rye, being only 45% corn and 45% rye, shy of the 51% of either of those needed to bear the names. As such, it bears some of the better attributes of both: the sweetness of bourbon tempered with the spicy qualities of rye. It's got plenty of flavor, and a good bit of chew, yet it's light on it's feet and mellow at 84 proof. Great as a sipper, I also like it mixed with lemon juice and club soda, garnished with peach slices.  "Boston Rum", the same initial distillate as the white rum, finishes it's aging in the charred whiskey barrels once the whiskey leaves them. It's dark amber in color, rich and chewy, and being made from molasses really hearkens back perhaps more than any of their other products to Boston's old liquor history. We are a port town, after all, and sailors love rum. Sip this one in a snifter or try it on the rocks with muddled lime and sugar.

You won't find Bully Boy far from Boston, at least not yet. If you're a local and you haven't tried it, get out there and do it. Any good bar in town stocks it by now. If you're visiting Boston, do yourself a favor and take some home. It makes a way better souvenir than a Red Sox t-shirt made in china that you can get anywhere. Bully Boy distillers is a real taste of the New Old Boston.

Auld Lang Syne

I recently accepted a very last minute invitation to a Robbie Burns Supper. It was a lovely evening filled with friendly company and sparkling conversation, three holes of Caledonian golf (read, grown people playing mini golf indoors), haggis dinner, and of course, plenty of Scotch Whisky, all of it in a lovely setting representative of old Boston. Not a bad place to wear the trousers from a vintage tuxedo with a vintage tartan jacket and a dress shirt with a Marcella bib, cuffs, and detachable collar with a body in Black Watch. 

Thanks for the invitation, YWP (remember him?) Scots Wha Hae and Gie Her a Haggis!

Rugged Enough

As you may know, I am a Massachusetts native, born and bred. I love it here, for any number of reasons. Obviously, given that this blog deals mainly with my love (obsession) for traditional menswear and my proclivity to buy it as cheaply as possible, the Bay State has a lot of thrift stores and an inordinately high proliferation of old Brooks Brothers, J. Press and the attendant British goods. Also, I happen to hold the increasingly unpopular opinion that Winter is fun, and we still have it here. Cold may cause some minor discomfort, but we all know that the clothes are so much better this time of year. Of course, the very best reasons to live here, the important ones, have nothing to do with clothes.

The greater Boston is unique in that one can enjoy the full experience of life in the city and all the culture that offers, and still be at the sea or in the woods anytime in less than half an hour. When you need a rugged fix, it's just around the corner. The view above was taken in the Middlesex Fells Reservation, ten minutes by car from my house. Last week, the kids had an extra day off from school, and we spent a perfect New England afternoon there, chilly, but with the sun high and bright.

We hiked up to Wright's Tower, which offers a spectacular view of Boston. The trail is just tough enough for little kids to feel like real woodsmen, and easy enough for Daddy to deal with comfortably. In other parts of the reservation are a collection of ponds to explore.

We packed a picnic lunch, the standard fare for the kids: peanut butter sandwiches, apples, CheezIts, and juice boxes. For Daddy, Jamon Serrano, Piave, Taleggio,  an apple and some (ahem) "grape juice".

I may rail about the rise of the "Urban Lumberjack", but at least I have a somewhat appropriate place for my Bean Boots, Levi's, and Opinel pocket knife. Here we see them all together, "in the wild". (this photo looks like it belongs over at 10engines)

After lunch, we tried some of the more hidden trails. The kids collected leaves, sticks, and rocks...the usual stuff. I'm not much of an outdoors type, but this place is too beautiful. I can come get my camping fix, and still go home to cook a nice meal and sleep in a bed. Perfect. 

And now that the kids are old enough to trust with the camera, I actually get to be in some of the pictures.

Middlesex Fells may not be the deep deep woods, and if you're a real outdoors adventure type you might find it boring. But it does offer a great and welcome escape for a city dweller, even if only for an afternoon. It's just rugged enough.

p.s. new stuff in the Shop, including the first batch of a consignment for none other than Newton Street Vintage. Click the AAWx NSV tab to view the collection.

Pizza Wood

My grandmother lived to cook and to feed people. I know this is true of so many such women of her generation, but I really do consider what she practiced in her kitchen to be art. The older I get, the truer it becomes to me. Her food was always simple and direct, but honest and balanced in a way that I find hard to describe. In the Summer, she kept things light, relying on all manner of fresh New England fish and the plethora of vegetables that my grandfather grew on his tiny patch of urban garden. As the weather cooled, things got more robust. Autumn was a time for packing and curing sausages, hanging them in strands from hooks on the ceiling of our enclosed back porch, occasionally curing an entire pig's leg into prosciutto for months on a hook in the basement. And then there was the polenta.

These days, any gourmand, or for that matter anyone who has cable or has heard of Mario Batali, knows what polenta is. In my youth, only Italians, and Northern ones at that, ate it, and only in the Fall and Winter.  Originally food for Roman soldiers to march on, the stuff is basically a dense cornmeal mush, not a high ticket gourmet side dish. Like so many things we now consider "gourmet", its beauty and essence originate with the poor people.

Nonna would make it sometimes for Sunday dinner after church. She had a stove and table set up in the cellar, separate from the kitchen in her apartment. She'd get a sauce cooking early in the morning, filled with her own homemade sausage and meatballs, and the tomatoes from Nonno's garden. It would sit on low simmer for hours. Then, down in the basement, the two of them would make the polenta together. In a huge pot of boiling water, she would add the cornmeal a handful at a time, letting the grains slip through her loose fist. He would stir constantly, with a big wooden pole. When it was ready, they would take the pot together and dump it onto an old wooden board, about three feet by two feet. The polenta would run and spread, but cool quickly before it ever ran over the edge, forming one giant piece of dense yet fluffy Italian cornbread. 

My brother and I would be called to the cellar to carry it up. It was too heavy for them to do it in their old age.  We would carry the board to the table and set it down, and she would spread the sauce over it, complete with meat and sausage, and then grate pecorino cheese over the whole thing. We'd all sit around it, six of us: Nonna and Nonno, my mother and father, my brother and I, each with a fork in hand, and proceed to eat from that one large piece. The grown-ups would wash it all down with plenty of Carlo Rossi Burgundy, while the kids would get Fresca, with just a whiff of wine. The we'd cut the leftover into squares and eat that for two or three days to follow.

These days I live in the apartment where they lived, cook in her kitchen, and am fortunate enough to use some of her things. Chief among them is the cast iron pan I simply couldn't do without, but the most soulful of her things that I have is the wooden board we used to serve the polenta. I use it when I make homemade pizza, and we all eat from it, no plates, just like the old days. My kids call it the "pizza wood".

If this all comes off as a whiff maudlin, please accept my apology. I just got tired of talking AAW business with you all, and I couldn't come up with anything fresh to say about oxford shirts, navy blazers, penny loafers, striped ties, Brooks Brothers, thrift shops, or jazz.