Skip to main content

The Daily Beast: "Art in the Age: Ex-Ad Man Steven Grasse’s Wonderfully Weird Spirits"

It's a little bit off the beaten path for this site, but as much as I'm passionate about television, I'm equally obsessed with food and cocktails, particularly the spirits made by Art in the Age, an organic, artisan spirits company based out of Philadelphia that produces “historically based artisanal crafted spirits, each one completely different.”

At The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "Art in the Age: Ex-Ad Man Steven Grasse’s Wonderfully Weird Spirits," in which I talk to Hendrick’s Gin creator and former ad man Steven Grasse—once called “the Don Draper of outrageousness”—about his eclectic spirits venture, Art in the Age.

The shelves of local liquor stores are piled high with concoctions such as bubble gum vodkas and root beer schnapps, sickly sweet libations that are not only synthetically flavored but also reminiscent of a candy store.

On the other end of the spectrum, there’s Art in the Age, a Philadelphia-based spirits company that has carved out a name for itself as makers of what founder Steven Grasse—an ex-ad man once deemed “the Don Draper of outrageousness”—calls “historically based artisanal crafted spirits, each one completely different.”

In just a matter of a few years, Art in the Age has dominated that nascent spirits category with its sophisticated and original products, such as ROOT, SNAP, and Rhubarb Tea (formerly known as RHUBY). Each of the spirits has its origins in the Colonial and Federalist-era past, recapturing a piece of American history in a bottle. ROOT is based on “root tea,” a folk recipe from the 1700s and precursor to root beer; SNAP recalls a Pennsylvania Dutch Lebkuchen (ginger snap); Rhubarb Tea is based on an alcoholic rhubarb tea recipe favored by Benjamin Franklin. The company’s latest offering, SAGE, is now on shelves.

In keeping with the company’s ethos, SAGE is a “garden gin” redolent of sage, rosemary, lavender, and fennel, and is inspired by avid horticulturist Thomas Jefferson and Bernard McMahon, Jefferson’s botanical advisor. McMahon, the author of the 1813 book Flora Americae Septentrionalis, was tasked by Jefferson with chronicling the 130 different plants discovered by Lewis and Clark on their fabled exposition. With SAGE, Art in the Age has concocted a spirit that uses the botanicals that link Jefferson, McMahon, and Lewis and Clark. Like all of their products, it transports the drinker to a pre-industrial time in our history, recalling “an earlier, more verdant world, when nature was more abundant and adventures more frequent.”

The 47-year-old Grasse, Art in the Age’s founder, is passionate about reconnecting to pre-industrial times. (The company’s name is derived from Walter Benjamin’s landmark 1936 essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”) “It’s a personal interest of mine,” said Grasse, speaking to The Daily Beast. “I’m obsessed with before the world turned to shit, pre-industrial era—which started in 1840—and the stories of America before industrialization happened.”

“When we set out to start Art in the Age, we challenged ourselves,” he said. “I wanted to create the weirdest thing I could think of and put it in the simplest bottle possible and see if I could make that work. But I also wanted to create something that was really interesting and different and mix in my personal interest in history.”

Continue reading at The Daily Beast...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian