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Matchbook distilling4/7/2023 ![]() This winter, another farm had a few thousand pounds of beets rendered inedible by a winter freeze, so she transformed them into a whole-beet ferment, triple pot-distilled with jasmine and citron peel. Last summer, she processed thousands of pounds of watermelon from a farm down the road for an all-American eau de vie. On any given day, she and her team can be found amid a mountain of freshly harvested cheese pumpkins or scooping out the flesh of hundreds of muskmelons, dreaming up unorthodox spirits that defy any codified category.Įarlier this summer, she roasted 1,600 pounds of fresh pineapples for three days in a massive, underground earth oven to create Ritual Sister, a smoky, fruity spirit that’s fermented for three weeks before distillation. But Merinoff-Kwasnieski has, as a part of her mission and bottom line, decided to intertwine her business with that of the farmers on Long Island’s North Fork, where Matchbook opened two years ago. “And she's never scared to try anything new.Leslie Merinoff-Kwasnieski, co-founder and head of strategy of Matchbook Distilling, spends a lot of time thinking about how her work can support biodiversity and regenerative agriculture-an unusual preoccupation for someone who makes spirits for a living. It rubs off on the people she’s brought in: “It's good to have someone behind you that's just really pushing forward good energy,” Babier says. It’s a local, community-oriented endeavor with state-wide implications, and one that has succeeded thanks to Merinoff-Kwasnieski’s intrepid efforts. Dinner pop-ups with local chefs happen about once a month. ![]() With both Nordic and beach-inspired decor, rooms feature 17-foot ceilings and claw-foot bathtubs. And Days Like These has already become a popular destination for locals and visitors alike, serving cocktails that showcase Matchbook’s creations as well as local wines and a custom-brewed beer from Greenport Harbor Brewing. The guesthouse, which was originally rented as a place for Merinoff-Kwasnieski and her team to live while they set up the distillery, is now a five-room mini-hotel that was created from an abandoned Victorian home. The team showcases the distilled fruits of their labor at their bar, Days Like These, located inside another venture: the Lin Beach House, about a mile away from the distillery. Even better, Matchbook takes care of all the taxes and paperwork necessary to produce and sell liquor-something this new law facilitates.Įau de vie isn’t easy to find at your average American liquor store, but Matchbook hopes to change that. ![]() The company has everything a customer might need to create a spirit: Matchbook mills New York-grown grains and has an apothecary wall featuring hundreds of straight botanical distillates, as well as key equipment like fermenters (10 of them), and custom-made hybrid stills that can be customized depending on what and how much is being produced-whether it’s rum, whiskey, gin, brandy, or any other spirit. It's a full-service distillery for those looking to create small-batch spirits, taking a beverage from concept to shelf-without having to build a distillery of their own. But it didn’t exist for spirits.” For Merinoff-Kwasnieski’s vision to come true, she had to change that.īecause Matchbook is no ordinary liquor producer. “The legal playing field for spirits has been really limiting,” Merinoff-Kwasnieski says. The distillery is now open on the North Fork of Long Island, thanks to a new state law she advocated for in August. But it at least applies to her taking on the New York State government, which she did in order to launch her dream project, Matchbook Distilling Company. ![]() “Nothing makes me nervous,” says Leslie Merinoff-Kwasnieski, which may be something of an overstatement.
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