Two James Spirits
I was perusing the whiskey selections at a local grocery grocery store and something caught my eye. It was a very hefty bourbon bottle with a giant “DETROIT” embossed along the bottom and the words “peated bourbon” on the label. I lost all interest in the selections and began to research this discovery.
Trivia question: where is bourbon made? The answer isn’t “only in Kentucky”. It can be made anywhere in the United States, so Detroit fits the bill. I later learned the fox on the label of the peated bourbon is a tribute to Detroit’s own Jimmy Hoffa, the head of the teamsters union, who disappeared in 1975 from the parking lot of the Red Fox restaurant in the Bloomfield Township suburbs. The horseshoe is an homage to the teamsters themselves.
It turns out there is a distillery on Michigan Avenue in the Corktown area of Detroit called Two James Spirits. They’ve been there for a couple years and are making all manner of distilled spirits from vodka, gin and absinth to bourbon, whiskey, and rye.
Tours are available for $15 but they’re sort of limited and one needs to book in advance. We already had planned a Sunday evening at the Fox Theater and dinner beforehand so we tacked on a tour at 3 PM.
Two James doesn’t have a kitchen but they do have a nice bar for cocktails. It turns out they were having a “pop-up sushi bar” that evening but we already had plans.
The tour was pretty laid back, just the three of us for most of the time. They’re not skimpy on the tastings, either. You get a pour of everything they make, including the licorice tasting absinth. I particularly enjoyed the peated bourbon and the rye was exceptional. The aged gin was a surprise and the absinth numbed our tongues.
The wall is dominated by a single rack of aging barrels. They own a warehouse on the other side of the street where most of the barrels reside, but some cool ones are kept in the work area.
The location is near the iconic Detroit Train Station, the one that has been abandoned for ages. Times are changing, though, and the Ford Motor Company has purchased the train station and some of the outlying buildings and is planning to refurbish it and occupy it for their autonomous vehicle division.
The view above is from the corner of the distillery.
The original distiller was part of Maker’s Mark and eventually was behind the new Whistle Pig bourbon. His influence on the tour rubbed off and we were encouraged to taste the “brewer’s beer” as it fermented.
Two James is very much as small craft distillery. They have one stainless steel vat with dividers used for separating the distillate into the head, heart, and tail.
‘The try box is very functional and all the valves to control the flow of the distillate are right there on top. It’s interesting to see a small operation like this in contrast to the big boys like Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark.
The bottling line is the same set up as Town Branch and Buffalo Trace with just six nozzles that are hand loaded.
In case you wondered what sports team owns the hearts and minds of the great people of Detroit, look no further than the fork truck.
Steve Yzerman is featured prominently, but the Captain has retired. He’s been in Tampa since 2010, building the Lightning into one of the best teams in the league. His heart and his family remained in Detroit, though, and he has recently fueled speculation that he’s coming back to the Wings soon when he stepped down as Tampa’s general manager to return home to them.
Lest you think Detroiters are maudlin drunkards pining for the glory days of old, the new blood is featured just as prominently. Rasmussen a 19 year old rookie this year and he’s riding along on fork truck too.
We returned to the bar area upon completion of the tour and shared a Bloody Mary made from Two James’ vodka. The place was pretty busy in advance of the sushi night. I bet once Ford starts filling their new former train station this will be a popular hangout. I’ll be back, maybe looking for a job upon retirement. How fun would that be?
~ Freddy
