DISTILLERY Matchbook Distilling Co., 230 Corwin St., Greenport, mdcdropshop.com
DISTILLER/OWNER Leslie Merinoff Kwasnieski
THE SPIRIT Daytrip Peach Amaro, 16% abv, 3,000 bottles made
FRUITS & HERBS peaches, peach leaves, pink peppercorn, quassia, rose petal, elderflower
PRICE $31, 750 ml
FAVE FOOD PAIRING Grilled peaches and Marcona almonds
Distiller Leslie Merinoff Kwasnieski is not your typical spirits maker. Owner of Matchbook Distilling with her husband, Brian Kwasnieski, as well as Lin House, where she serves her spirits and liqueurs to lucky guests, there is at once a hyperlocal yet transportive nature to the evocative, small-batch liquid fun she makes.
“So much of the draw to beverage alcohol production for me is the preservation of the natural world,” says Merinoff Kwasnieski. “Working from the rich and ever-changing ecosystem around us, that’s the best-case scenario for me. The fact it’s a moving target is its appeal.”
The creation of her Daytrip Amaro reaches back to the monasteries of medieval Europe, where monks would distill fruit and infuse botanicals into potables meant to help with digestion (and perhaps mood, if we’re going to be honest about it). Ever-stirred by the moments of each season, Merinoff Kwasnieski was inspired to create this digestif by tuning into the smells, flavors and fields around her.
“Walking down the street [last spring], I could smell jasminoides in the air. It alerted me to the elderflowers, surely blooming and, fingers crossed, not badly damaged from the cold snaps and heavy rains,” she says. “For the peach leaves, it’s later morning in late August, early September, when the leaves are mature and full of flavor, but shy of fall when they begin to break down as the tree goes dormant for winter. And I can learn that because I’m a part of this ecosystem, with its rich food and beverage culture and the people who work it.”
To create Daytrip Amaro, Merinoff Kwasnieski makes a peach wine as the base.
“The peaches don’t have to be pretty; some can be bruised so long as they’re free from any mold or rot. I get them into a refrigerated tank and seal it up until the tank is full and the peaches are perfectly ripe,” she says. “I layer in yeast with the peaches so the free run juice can begin a clean fermentation. I then top the tank up with water and heat it to pull the juice from the peaches. Then cool it, pitch more yeast and let it ferment for a few days. I know it’s done when the liquid presents fresh, floral and dry peach.”
Later, Merinoff Kwasnieski fortifies the peach wine with a distillate she makes from the elderflower and, a few weeks later, adds in the fresh crushed peach leaves.
“Our hands get to work crunching the leaves and getting them into the still. When you first start, the activity is so tactile and the effects so immediate as the slightly cherry and pronounced almond aromatics begin to flood the air,” she says, “but wow, do your hands start to ache 30 minutes in!” All that effort pulls the natural oils and other extracts from the leaves, pulling delicious aromatics that become part of the evocative charms of the amaro.
“I take great pride into contributing back into this ecosystem,” says Merinoff Kwasnieski, “particularly when I can take excess crop or celebrate some ingredient that usually goes to waste or left unnoticed.”
