Raff Distillerie

I’m not really sure what to think so I’m just going to go with a middle-​of-​the-​road 3-​star rating. Alright that’s a lie — I DO know what I think… I just feel kinda bad saying it. But how can a business improve without constructive feedback, even if it’s not 100% glowing?
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I fucking love gin. My husband and I had been meaning to check these guys out for some time (they make the local small-​batch «Bummer & Lazarus» gin as well as absinthe, of which my husband is a fan) and got ourselves on the mailing list to keep our eyes open for any events we might be able to schedule. Sure enough, a message went out calling for volunteers to help out with bottling a couple weekends ago. We and one of our friends signed up – the three of us are no strangers to bottling, having helped out at Trojak Knier Winery here in HMB many times — so we figured like with TK, this would be fun and educational.
The owner Carter said he’d supply lunch for everyone participating. A couple days before, he emailed asking if anyone had any dietary restrictions. I responded saying I’m pescatarian. He replied saying that I’d better just bring my own food then. Uhh, ok. When we did show up for the bottling, he was all, «I didn’t even know what that was so I figured fuck it, you can figure out your own shit.» (That was verbatim — he literally said exactly that to me).
Anyhoo…the bottling was the most unorganized mess I’ve ever seen. We were among the first to arrive, so we got a quick little mini-​tour (the distillery is in the former naval brig which is actually pretty neat — the old solitary confinement cells are still there, the visitation room, etc.) and then a run-​down of the bottling line. We were put on the waxing station and given a lecture about how important it is to do it correctly, and then some training on it. Carter made it very clear that he expected people to do it right and only wanted people doing it who were good at it. Then a shitload of new people started wandering in and were told «just go help wax!» and we were inundated with newbies just plopping bottles in without listening to how it was supposed to be done. We tried showing them as fast as we could, but there were just so many people it was hard to keep up. Oh well.
We hammered out a squillion cases of gin and broke for lunch when it was all bottled & boxed up. Lunch consisted of chips, macaroni & potato salad, and some weiners & burgers or something. We had to wash our own plates with a hose when we were done. o_​O
After lunch we were getting set up to switch over to absinthe. By that point. we’d kind of just had enough. We’d been busting our asses for like 4 hours basically for free on a Sunday and the owner was showing very little appreciation; plus, his personal friends in the group just seemed to be hanging out & joking around and not really helping a lot. I didn’t expect to be fawned all over, but at the same time, we were giving up a day of our weekend to help a stranger’s business out and he couldn’t even really bother to have sorted things out in an orderly fashion or even gone beyond a tub of Costco macaroni salad. It was certainly not much fun and we didn’t feel like our efforts really meant anything to the guy, so we figured we’d done enough and were going to head out. We each got a mislabeled bottle of gin for our troubles so there’s that.
For future bottlings, a good game plan and coordinated start would be a big help. In addition, showing some genuine appreciation for people’s efforts would go a reeeeeallllly long way.
Anyhoo, are you wondering what the gin is like? We cracked our bottle a few nights later at home to test it out. Carter was telling us that he uses only the highest-​quality botanicals from around the world to flavor the gin. When you first open and sniff it, you can definitely tell there’s a shitload going on. I tend to like my gins rather on the floral/​botanical side while my husband prefers his more crisp or citrusy. I made a martini and fixed a G & T for the husband unit. Although the flavors are unique and the gin seems to be high quality, neither of us was really all that impressed overall. Personally, I feel like it’s got a little TOO much going on, like it was steeped in Grandma’s potpourri bowl. But hey, maybe we’re just not the target audience! It’s not BAD, it’s just not my style.
We didn’t get to try the absinthe since we left before they got underway with bottling that one, but we might look for it in stores and try it out later on.
Anyway…not a great experience and not my favorite gin, but there’s a lot of potential here and I’m sure once they work the kinks out and streamline their processes, future bottlings will be much smoother & more enjoyable. And I’m sure there are people out there who would go apeshit for a «big» gin too. No hard feelings, just a learning experience…