From Matchbook Distilling Co.:
Every summer since we’ve opened, we’ve pressed several thousand pounds of local fresh watermelons. Watermelon season is peak summer and a moment at the distillery we all look forward to. We’ve added Rogers Farm on the South Fork to our list of watermelon suppliers and last year, between them and Seps Farm, we pressed some 16,000 pounds of fresh watermelons in our vintage Italian wine press ‘Dolce.’
It takes us several weeks to get through it all now. We still ferment the juice with a touch of champagne yeast and distill it into an eau-de-vie. No added sugar. No added anything. Just watermelon juice, fermented into alcohol and distilled.
This is Riley. Cut with water down to 4% alcohol by volume and then carbonated with CO2. Riley Watermelon Sparkler—a sparkling watermelon eau-de-vie at 4% alcohol by volume. 0 sugar. 0 additives. A canned spiked seltzer, the Matchbook way.
