From Farm To Bottle: The SILO Distillery Process

By Nancy Nutile-McMenemy, Standard Correspondent

WINDSOR — It’s 7 a.m. and Chris Maggiolo’s day is about to begin. Maggiolo is the production manager at SILO Distillery, which produces distinct, small-batch spirits made from as many local products as they can find. Maggiolo, who recently celebrated his one-year anniversary at SILO, grew up in Virginia and received his master’s degree in gastronomy from Boston University and now lives in Windsor.

The farm-to-bottle process begins with the delivery of corn from the Grembowicz Farm in North Clarendon. Jeff Grembowicz, whose father sold him the family dairy in 2005, expanded the farm into fields of grain: corn, rye, wheat and soybeans. He typically delivers five tons of corn to SILO on “grain day.” Grembowicz started out grinding corn for pellet stoves but when that peaked, he went looking for another place to sell his grains, he found SILO.

“These local relationships are the saving grace for our farm,” said Grembowicz. “Right now, I’m working exclusively with SILO, but I have spoken to two other distilleries.”

The bags of grain are stacked and stored until the corn is ground on site. The hammer mill grinds the corn kernels and the milled grains are sent up an auger into a large tank called the mash tun, where it is cooked with local water creating the mash, an oatmeal-like mixture. Two enzymes are slowly added over six hours to break down the starches to sugars, then yeast is added to initiate the fermentation process.

After moving the fermenting mash from the mash tun to an insulated fermentation tank, the mash will sit for roughly 5-7 days while the yeast does its work, breaking down the sugars from the grains into carbondioxide and alcohol. This process, known as fermentation, is the first step in making any spirits, and the only step where alcohol is actually made. When about 99 percent of the sugars have been consumed by the yeast, the mixture is now referred to as a wash. The wash has an alcohol content of approximately 10 percent. In order to turn this wash into a spirit of one kind or another, the art of distillation is necessary.

Part of the Farm to Bottle to Farm process is sending the spent mash, which now has no alcohol content, to area farms. Two such farms are Cavendish Gamebirds in Springfield and Springmore Farm in Baltimore, where the spent mash is used for feed and composting.

The wash is moved from the fermentation tank to the pot still beginning the alcohol stripping process. A stripping run is just that, the mixture is heated indirectly with steam, causing the ethanol to become a vapor that moves from the helmet of the still, along the spirit pipe and back into a condensation column where it is cooled and becomes a liquid once. That gas is in effect the spirit of ethanol. The product of a stripping run is a very floral and cloudy liquid, called a low wine, because of its relatively low alcohol content, about 30-40 percent. After a few stripping runs, the low wine is sent back into the pot for the finish run.

The finish run, or final distillation process, begins with the low wine being pumped. SILO uses a custom made pot and column still, made from copper and stainless steel, produced by German still manufacturers CARL. The low wines are run through the pot and column, and after a single run, a finished spirit is collected. This is then proofed down with local water, and purified by reverse osmosis to a final 80 proof that will bottled and labeled in house. The short column is used to make whiskey and the longer column is used to make vodka. The longer column removes move flavors to create a clean vodka.

SILO’s parent company, American Crafted Spirits, was founded in 2011 by eighth generation Vermonters and began production in 2013. SILO products include: SILO Vodka, SILO Cucumber Vodka. SILO Elderberry Vodka, SILO Lavender Vodka, SILO Lemon Vodka. SILO Gin, SILO Reserve Gin, SILO Moonshine, SILO Aged Whisky and SILO Bourbon.

All distilled spirits are clear. Whiskeys and bourbons get their color and flavors from the barrels they are aged in. SILO uses barrels from a family cooperage in Minnesota, called Black Swan Cooperage. SILO’s bourbon and whiskey profiles are due to Black Swan’s patented Honey-Comb technique which allows the spirit more contact with the natural sugars in the charred American oak barrel. It takes about nine days from grain to bottle for vodka and whiskey about 8-10 months because of the oak barrel aging process.

SILO also uses as many local botanicals for their infused spirits as possible. Plants like northern hardy lavender, lemon verbena, juniper berries for their gin, and local apples.

SILO’s next release is a limited edition wheat whiskey named Aisling (ASH-ling). Aisling is a young whiskey distilled from wheat mash and aged with charred ash wood staves — 100 percent sourced from Vermont farms.

This summer and fall SILO will collaborate with two well-known Vermont brands Harpoon Brewery and Lake Champlain Chocolates. First up is SILO Solstice, a spirit distilled from UFO White Beer, with notes of orange peel, coriander and wheat. A bright and refreshing spirit, it evokes dreams of summer days spent in the swimming holes of Vermont.

In the fall, SILO will release SILO Cacao Vodka, a vodka infused with cacao shells from Lake Champlain Chocolates’ Blue Bandana Line. Once the cacao beans arrive in Vermont the shells are winnowed, or separated, to extract the nibs of the beans. The cacao nibs are used to produce their signature chocolates, but they have little use for the shell of the bean. The shells are sent over to SILO where they are infused into their 100 percent Vermont-grown corn vodka. SILO Cacao’s smooth, yet complex, flavor is best enjoyed on a brisk day, with company, near your favorite hearth.

In addition to partnering with farms and botanical gardens around Vermont and New England, SILO also practices water conservation. They use a 1,500-gallon closed system water supply for the mash and cooling of the tanks, pot and columns.

For the future Maggiolo would like to create a single malt whiskey, “I’ve been in touch with a Maltster in Monkton (Vermont) and I hope we can work something out.”

This article first appeared in the July 14, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.