Have you ever had spirits from House Spirits Distillery? You may have enjoyed these local spirits in cocktails around Portland without even knowing it. Besides offering a distillery tasting room where during a visit you can try tastings of their liquors, at their tasting room you can also try their whiskey, spirit, and cocktail flight (or try a particular cocktail individually). You can also join in one of their free distillery tours. But did you also know they offer special cocktail classes? Having attended one myself, I can highly recommend it as you will get your money’s worth in learning at least 5 types of cocktails and making them hands on and tasting them, as well as the rest of the knowledge you will gain when you attend the cocktail classes with House Spirits Distillery.
For instance, for my class, which was called the Bitter Truth and centered on learning, trying, and using bitters, I was able to make multiple cocktails as you’ll see below. The cocktails centered around their Westward Whiskey, Volstead Vodka, Krogstad Aquavit, and Casa Magdalena Rum, so we got to try cocktails with all the liquors. Here’s a look at the setup before we messed it up making drinks – you can see my “Welcome House Spirits Cocktail” also in the video from my Instastories. Tip: wear comfortable shoes because you will be standing making cocktails during the entire class.
We started with a simple classic recipe dramatically named here, The Cocktail- basically an Old Fashioned. This simple start also is when we talked about how much is in a dash, how to know stir and when to stop stirring (stir for 20 seconds with back of spoon to the glass sides, and the glass should feel chilled), and tips on how long simple syrup lasts (4 weeks!) and freezing lemon juice in ice cube trays.
