This past Saturday I participated in a "bottling party" at Northern Virginia's Falls Church Distillers where we filled and labeled 325 bottles of Frozen Falls Vodka ($30). This spirit is based off a wheat and sugar cane mash bill and after fermentation is cut to 80 proof using water filtered and purified at the distillery. In fact, Falls Church Distillers also filtrates their drinking water and ice to achieve a "pure" environment for sipping cocktails.
Before the dozen volunteers started bottling this fourth batch of Frozen Falls, chief distiller Lorenzo Paluzzi demonstrated each phase of the bottling process. It starts with a shot of air into the empty bottle, which is then filled with vodka, inspected for any floaters, capped, sealed, labeled, inscribing the batch number, and finally boxed and sealed for bonding. Most of us rotated through a couple of these stations and despite a few label machine and pumping malfunctions we finished the task within an hour and a half. Then we moved to the distillery's tasting area for a refreshing Moscow Mule. Cheers to that.
