There’s a Robert Frost poem called “The Rose Family.” The gist is that while the rose is widely regarded as a thing of beauty, it is related to the less beautiful peach, apple and “plum, I suppose.”
The kernel inside plum stones is the foundation of this spirit. Rather than tasting of stone fruit, the kernel lends a marzipan, bitter almond flavor. Distilled marigold kombucha brings another side of floral and tannic notes reminiscent of plum skins; the combination is sort of the suggestion of plum, hence the reference to the Robert Frost poem. A perception of sweetness with a refreshing finish.
Flavour: Sweet, marzipan, floral, bright
ABV: 32%
Volume: 500mls
Serve: Neat or with citrus soda over ice
About Empirical Spirits | Denmark
Empirical Spirits is a Flavour Company and is forever inspired by the role flavour plays in our ability to create and transport experiences. Their primary focus is to explore flavour incessantly, by any means necessary. It was founded in 2017 by Noma alums, Lars Williams and Mark Emil Hermansen, in a warehouse just outside of downtown Copenhagen.
Using a chef-like philosophy in their approach to acquiring ingredients that are in-season and of the highest quality, they set about to create a distillation method that suited their goals. This lead Lars to become enveloped in vacuum distillation, a process in which the ingredients are heated to a much lower temperature relative to traditional pot still distillation, allowing for many of the properties of each ingredient to remain present in the final product. The first was built by Lars himself, and resembled the kind of machine you might find in sci-fi movies from the 1960s. They have since grown their operation to include multiples of these special stills, as well as other machinery to aid in the delicate extraction of flavour from their raw ingredients.
This approach to capturing flavour also influences every step leading up to distillation.