How Ethan’s Reserve Cracked the Code on Kosher-for-Passover Whiskey
Ethan's Reserve photo courtesy The River
When kosher-for-Passover whiskey from Ethan’s Reserve first appeared on shelves in spirits stores in New York last spring, rabbis in both the U.S. and the U.K. started getting outraged voicemails. Within days, the Orthodox Union (the governing board that certifies food as kosher; better know just as the OU) was fielding dozens of complaints. The messages were all, essentially, the same: either someone had forged the organization’s seal of approval or someone had made a huge mistake. “There were a lot of people who were offended, literally, by having the words ‘kosher for Passover’ and ‘whiskey’ on the same bottle,” says Ami Nahari, the CEO and founder of The River, the spirits company that produces the whiskey. After all, it was impossible for a whiskey to be kosher for Passover. Wasn’t it?
No Grain for Passover
Distiller Bruce Boeko photo courtesy Nashville Craft Distillery
To understand the storm that the arrival of Ethan’s Reserve kosher-for-Passover whiskey set off, you need to first understand some things about Passover, beyond the basic story of Moses and the exodus from Egypt. For observant Jews, this holiday is celebrated over the course of seven or eight days (depending on what community you belong to). And while only the first night (or first two nights, depending on where you live) are marked by the ritual Seder—the retelling of the story of Exodus and a festive meal—there is a strict dietary law that must be followed for the entire holiday: you can’t eat any leavened foods or, even, anything made from grains that might accidentally start to leaven.
Staying away from leavened foods, or chametz, is a big deal in observant families. According to Jewish law, you shouldn’t even have it in the house. In practice, different people handle this in different ways. Some truly throw out any bread, crackers, or packaged foods that contain leavened materials. Others take a more symbolic approach, covering their cabinets with plastic wrap and/or “selling” their chametz to non-Jewish friends for a dollar (and later buying it back). Less observant people might just avoid eating it, the way a Catholic might eschew sugar for lent. Whatever a family’s traditions, however, one thing is certain: You can’t eat (or drink) anything made with grains.
Thus, any observant Jew who knows much about whiskey knows that this product—which is, by definition, made from grain crops—can’t possibly be kosher for Passover. Or at least that was the obvious and logical conclusion. Until, that is, Nahari and distiller Bruce Boeko of Nashville Craft Distillery started talking about a slightly unusual variation of the spirit: sorghum whiskey.
Sorghum Whiskeys
Sorghum whiskeys live in a bit of a grey area for American whiskey making. According to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (the TTB), whiskey must be made from a “mash of grain.” But the rule doesn’t specify what part of the grain crop has to be used. Most sorghum whiskeys, therefore, are made from a distillation of sorghum syrup, a popular ingredient in Southern cooking. And while sorghum syrup is technically made from a grain (because the entire plant is classified as a grain), it’s not made with the seeds—like sugar syrup, sorghum syrup comes from the plant’s stalk. While neither Boeko or Nahari will discuss how Ethan’s Reserve sorghum whiskey is made, it’s not hard to draw a line between that distinction and how it might skirt the rules of Passover observance. (They’ve also worked closely with rabbis throughout the process to ensure they were following all the relevant religious laws. “They told us we were over-supervised,” jokes Nahari. “We were overly strict about it.”)
According to Boeko, making this spirit came with its own, unique technical challenges—though many of those are more specific to the requirements of using sorghum than to the religious requirements. “You have to distill it in a particular way, so that you retain the character and the flavor—but not too much character and too much flavor,” he says, noting that many sorghum whiskey can be too earthy. “We want to be a little bit higher on the proof, at distillation, for a sorghum than for a grain whiskey,” he explains. While other American-style whiskeys are distilled somewhere between 120- and 160-proof, Boeko notes that with sorghum, if you distilled at 120-proof, “you would get a real overwhelming earthiness.”
Boeko also has to add nutrients (whiskeys made from more typical ingredients like corn, rye, or barley already have enough contained in the grain mixture itself) and needs a yeast capable of handling fructose, which is something he wouldn’t necessarily be dealing with on a typical whiskey mash. Both of these elements must also, of course, be kosher for Passover.
How Ethan’s Reserve is Made
Nashville Craft Distillery Tour photo courtesy Nashville Craft Distillery
The spirit is then aged in the style of American whiskey, in new charred oak (number three and number four char levels; the same types you’d find in other Tennessee whiskeys). This offers two benefits: First, it adds the vanilla and woody notes and the deep rich color associated with American whiskeys. “A sorghum spirit has its own inherent sweetness, but it’s different than the sweetness that you might get from a grain-based bourbon,” Boako explains. “We talk about vanilla cake batter as one of the flavors that we observe in our sorghum spirits. You also get a good, positive butteriness that goes well with the rest of the flavor.” Second, because the barrel has never had anything else in it, it ensures that the team doesn’t have to worry about contamination of non-kosher-for-Passover elements.
The result is a very sippable spirit—a light, honeyed whiskey with a complex, aromatic flavor that is both slightly earthy and simultaneously almost a little bit floral in its high notes. It’s recognizably American in style but still has a distinct quality. “When you are fermenting sorghum, you get a lot of prominent apple esters [rather than the more banana flavors you get in other whiskeys] and a little bit or citrus comes through as well,” says Boeko. “When I’m in the distillery for the month or so that we’re distilling sorghum, it smells like a cidery.”
So, how was the world’s first kosher-for-Passover whiskey received? “It spread like fire!” says Nahari.“We had 500 cases that were gone in, like, 48 hours.” While the first batch, produced last year, was only released in the New York and New Jersey markets, this year’s is being distributed across the country—though still in pretty small numbers. “This year I’m kind of holding it back a little bit, just to make sure that everyone who orders can get some,” explains Nahari. “It's been an unbelievable success.”