Herb growers plunge into gin venture

Tucked away in their mountain retreat west of Kalispell, Julie and Joe Legate spend hours among their containers of hand-picked and dried local herbs perfecting their new craft.

No, they’re not making dried floral arrangements or holiday sachet creations or even herbal teas.

They’re distilling one of Montana’s newest beverages — Silvertip American Dry Gin.

The Legates own and operate one Ridge Distillery, of four microdistilleries in Montana, a venture they’ve devoted countless hours to for the last 18 months.

The couple started down the road to the distilling industry innocently enough.

Joe has been brewing beer and mead “for as long as I can remember,” Julie said. Julie always has been interested in herbs and began growing and drying herbs to make her own herbal tea.

Because of their interests in old-world spirits, they met people who were distilling various types of alcohol. Many of those distillers were searching for herbs the Legates happened to have.

They were supplying the herbs to other distillers when it occurred to them, “Hey, we can do this,” Julie said, leading to the gin adventure.

That led to the gin venture.

They began doing research about distilling and learned that hobbyist distilling isn’t legal, so they began the process to become permitted, licensed distillers. The Legates would prefer to distill only as a hobby.

“We had to go through a good handful of agencies,” Julie said. But all the government agencies they dealt with were “incredibly helpful,” she said.

From the outside, you would think the distillery was a storage shed or garage next to the Legates’ home. Once inside when the aromas of herbs strike, you know this is no garage.

In one corner sits a 200-liter copper alembic still that was handmade in Portugal. Joe points out the visible hammer marks on the still’s exterior left by the craftsman. It sits inside a silver stock tank, the same kind frequently spotted around the west filled with water for livestock. On top of the pot is an onion dome.

Water in the stock tank is heated by burners. That heated water warms the contents of the still. Grain alcohol and herbs go inside the still to create gin. The Legates buy the smallest quantity of grain alcohol sold, but it still comes in a 55-gallon drum.

Once the alcohol and herbs are distilled into a vapor, the gas travels through a swan’s-neck tube and enters a set of copper coils cooled by cold water. That process turns it back into a liquid, Joe explains. The gin then is removed from the pot into glass gallon jugs and poured into beakers.

They started with a “teeny, tiny alembic still,” Julie said, before graduating to the 200-liter still they now use.

Because the product is higher in alcohol content than the finished product is sold for, it has to be mixed with water until it is 44 percent alcohol.

It’s about 80 percent alcohol when it comes out of the copper pot, so the mix is about half water. Since the Legates are making such small amounts of gin, Julie actually mixes each batch individually. She deftly pulls the appropriate glass beakers, cylinders, thermometers and hydrometers off the shelves to reach that magic 44 number.

Joe leaves the mixing process to Julie, saying she has the patience and temperament to do it.

Once the gin hits the 44 percent mark, it’s poured into a bottling machine and the 750-milliliter bottles are filled, capped, boxed and stored until they are shipped to the state liquor warehouse.

Silvertip Gin’s alcohol content, Joe says, “seemed appropriate to Montana.”

Gin must be at least 40 percent alcohol and some ranges as high as 57 percent. Most popular gins range from 41 to 45 percent alcohol, he said. Most people refer to the alcohol proof, however, which for Silvertip is 88 proof. Proof is double the amount of alcohol in any spirit.

The Legates received their final permit on Aug. 4 and within two weeks had shipped their first 10 cases to the state. A couple of days ago they shipped another 10 cases to the state warehouse in Helena and have already been asked how soon another shipment could be sent, Joe said.

Three Kalispell liquor stores have the product in stock, Julie said, including BYOB Liquor on Idaho Street, the Evergreen Liquor Store and Montana Liquor and Wine on U.S. 93 South. Grizzly Liquor in Missoula has placed an order with the state warehouse, Joe said.

The Legates can sell a limited amount of gin from their business office and have sold six bottles so far. They also are allowed to have a tasting room where they could serve no more than two ounces of alcohol per person per day. Today, anyway, they have no plans for a tasting room.

Outside the distillery are gardens filled with rare and aromatic herbs. The Legates use many of those herbs, including juniper, coriander, caraway, orris and angelica, in the gin distillation. That herb mix was chosen “because we thought it would appeal to the American palate,” Joe said.

They pick the herbs, hand dry them, strip the leaves off the stalks, package the herbs and store them out of direct sunlight.

The Legates spend as much time as possible hiking in the mountains near Kalispell, searching for wild herbs such as angelica. It’s legal to pick small amounts of herbs without permits, Julie said. So far they haven’t needed quantities which would require them to obtain a permit.

They’re fussy about what herbs they pick.

They won’t pick anywhere where herbicides or pesticides may have been used or any that are too close to roads and may have been exposed to exhaust or runoff.

While not yet certified as organic, the Legates follow organic practices.

“As much as possible, we’re a green company,” Julie said. They have a little water waste from the distilling process, but they recycle it for watering plants. The spent herbs are added to a compost pile.

One reason they pick and grow herbs they aren’t using in their gin is the Legates are seeking approval to distill absinthe. They’d also like to expand to distilling liqueurs and rare old-world spirits.

Once they master absinthes and perhaps a liqueur or two, the Legates aren’t sure what might be next in their distilling world. They squeeze the distilling work in around their full-time jobs. Joe is a speech and theater arts instructor at Flathead Valley Community College. Julie is a quality auditor for a health insurance company.

Their distilling business is tied to Montana, they say. “Most of the states where we lived previously, we couldn’t do this,” Joe said. “Montana is our motivation. All the things that make this place special, along with Julie’s herbal background,” were keys to the decision to distill gin.

Deciding what to name their gin and distillery came easily, the Legates say. “We live on the ridge with views of Glacier National Park and Blacktail Ski Resort,” Julie said, hence Ridge Distillery. The product label features Summit Mountain and a grizzly bear. Naming the product Silvertip Gin seemed a given since grizzly bears often referred to by such names as “old silvertip,” Joe said.

They promise a high-quality product in every bottle of Silvertip Gin. “It’s got to be good or I won’t put it out there,” Julie said.

“At the end of the day we hope we have handcrafted something special that symbolizes Montana’s beautiful mountains and streams,” Julie said. “It’s really the only reason we wanted to do this.”

Reporter Shelley Ridenour may be reached at 758-4439 or by e-mail at sridenour@dailyinterlake.com.