It was a gorgeous Chicago summer Sunday afternoon as we began the lovely 10 block walk from our apartment up to Ravenswood and Foster. We arrived at Koval, ready for our tour and tasting. Alas, it was not to be. Unfortunately the evil date website had attempted to thwart us once again by not checking Koval's class schedule. We discovered that the normally scheduled tour was not available that day due to a distilling class that had, of course, been on the books for months. Another couple arrived shortly after we did, the same mistaken confirmation in hand.
One of the distillers came to the rescue. He offered us the opportunity to come back any time to redeem our tour, plus he gave us another free tour for us and another person, along with a private tasting (with the other couple, of course) of anything we wanted, right there in the front of the distillery. So How About We's mistake was our gain, leading to three visits in about 5 weeks.
Our second visit was the next weekend when we actually got to tour the facility, and our third we used when Ben visited for his graduation trip. The following details the exploits of those two visits.
The Aging Room
Elizabeth: I don't like whiskey or bourbon at all, and I even enjoyed a few of their offerings. The other cool thing about them being organic and kosher is that everyone they work with is in on it, too. The barrel makers designed a barrel especially for Koval that uses beeswax, rather than a paraffin-based wax, to maintain the kosher status of the entire process.
Michel: On the tour one learns that in order to be called a whiskey, the liquid must come into contact with an oak barrel. Thus things like bourbons and ryes are whiskeys, and gins and vodkas are not. Fascinating.
Elizabeth: The type of burning inside the oak barrel determines the color of the whiskey. Lighter whiskeys are aged in toasted barrels, while darker whiskeys are aged in charred barrels. White whiskeys are placed in a oak barrel just long enough to be called a whiskey and then removed. I think the white whiskeys taste like cleaning fluid. Ben agrees with me.
Ben's response to the white whiskeys
Michel: While I preferred the aged whiskeys, I did enjoy the white ones. They would mix well in cocktails.
Elizabeth: The tour starts with the stills, and the tour guidess goes through the process, showing where everything happens in the stills. Fun fact: Koval is the national distributor for this particular German still manufacturer, who created a hybrid still specifically for Koval. It takes the best parts of the pot still and the column still and combines them for a really effective and efficient distilling process. Unfortunately we don't really remember or understand the differences, but basically one of the stills allows for greater customization and the other allows for more efficient distilling. Koval can do both. They also use their status as the first distillery opened in Chicago since Prohibition and their progressive distilling techniques to help set up other craft distilleries around the country.
Foreground: Pot Still
Left Background: Column Still
Michel: Yep. While we were there, they had been making gin, so the inside of the pot still smelled like tea from the botanicals. Where they give the tours is the original location that they have outgrown. The primary distilling operation is a few blocks south on Ravenswood. They are currently making gins and vodkas at the smaller location.
From our first tour
Elizabeth: After learning about the distilling process and tasting the white whiskeys, we move into the Aging Room to learn about the barreling and bottling process and distribution. And, of course, this is where they pull out the big guns: the aged whiskeys, including the bourbon, and the liqueurs.
Michel: The primary grains used by Koval are oat, wheat, millet, and rye. They also use corn for the bourbon and malted barley for their Four Grain whiskey. My particular favorites are the bourbon, the wheat whiskey, and the Four Grain. The bourbon is just a really high quality bourbon. The wheat whiskey has a nice butterscotchy sweetness to it, and the Four Grain is the most scotch adjacent whiskey in their stable.
The Tasting Table
Elizabeth: I like the bourbon and the millet whiskey the best. Ben really enjoyed the wheat, saying it was very smooth. We tried the millet and the Four Grain when it was just the two of us and the wheat and the rye when Ben was with us. The bourbon was tasted both times, along with the liqueurs. My favorite of the liqueurs is the walnut. It's wonderfully and authentically walnutty. My second favorite is the chrysanthemum honey. It tastes like pure honey. I am envisioning both being occasionally used during the winter, the chrysanthemum honey in my tea and the walnut in my hot chocolate. Yum!
Michel: I don't generally care for liqueurs, but I quite enjoy Koval's. In particular, I enjoyed the coffee, walnut, and the chrysanthemum honey. All three are good on their own, and I imagine they would be good mixed in with other beverages as well.
Elizabeth: The great thing about the liqueurs is that there are not extra ingredients. What the label says is what you get. So the walnut is water, sugar, and walnut. The same goes for everything, including some of their other flavors like apple, rose hip, pear, jasmine (which we have yet to try, but is high on my list), sunchoke, ginger, orange blossom, and caraway, along with several others.
Michel: The rose hip is also very good.
Elizabeth: Agreed. We could tell you a lot more about the distillery and its owners, but we don't want to spoil the tour! But know that Robert, the co-owner, comes from a family of Austrian distillers, and his wife, Sonat, grew up in Chicago, hence the Chicago location, despite them meeting when they both worked in Washington DC. In all ways, it truly is a family business.
Michel: In our neighborhood we have the city's first craft distillery and its first craft brewery, Half Acre. Ravenswood/Lincoln Square is ground zero for Chicago hand-crafted booze. Pretty cool.
