An employee who drinks on the job is usually a liability to a business. But in some cases, an employee who drinks on the job, as part of his job, is an asset.
Consider Matthew Montanaro ’14. He’s the head distiller at 1911 Spirits, a producer of premium hard cider, vodka and gin made from apples grown in LaFayette, New York. “I get that all the time, the ‘drinking on the job’ comments,’’ Montanaro said with a smile.
The 1911 Spirits brand is the craft beverage end of Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards, a family business that has grown into a major agritourism destination. Montanaro, now 24, scored an internship there in late 2013, while he was a bioprocess engineering student at ESF. He cleaned kegs, washed floors and worked on the hard cider bottling line, among other duties.
It was a great learning experience, he said, and a case of being “in the right place at the right time’’: He got an education in distilling and running a distillery from a seasoned cider maker and distiller who was ready for retirement. Montanaro graduated in May and stepped into the distiller position in December of that year.
“In college, I started home brewing, and from home brewing, I knew I would like that kind of scene,’’ Montanaro recalled. “The moreI learned about the industry, the more I knew I wanted to focus on distilling. I got lucky here, to have someone train me and to learn.’’
Beak & Skiff has been growing apples on the rural hillside south of Syracuse for more than 100 years. It’s a seasonal business — the sprawling Apple Hill campus welcomes thousands of visitors each year to pick apples and sample cider and spirits, or both. Montanaro works year-round at the distillery, on the north side of Route 20, where he enjoys “the best view on the campus,’’ overlooking a valley where apples grow as far as the eye can see. He loves the connection to the land and making the connection of “tree to bottle’’ right outside the door. “It’s nice to come here early in the morning and watch the sun rise over the valley,’’ he added.
It’s not the career he envisioned when he was a high school student on Long Island or a college student at ESF. He earned a bachelor’s degree in bioprocess engineering and imagined he might someday work in the paper industry or in chemical engineering, as many of his former classmates do now.
Montanaro said his education at ESF trained him to work well in a collaborative environment. He gets that at 1911 but often works largely on his own. His job begins with the arrival of fresh-pressed apple cider from the facility across the road. The cider is pumped into fermenters, yeast is added to work its magic and the juice stays there for three to five days. It’s then distilled three or four times and cut with purified water to create a smooth vodka with a hint of fruitiness or sweetness. You know it’s made from apples, but it doesn’t taste like apples, just as other vodkas don’t taste like corn or grain.
At several points in the process, he samples for quality control — just the tiniest of tastes. “You know what’s good and you know what’s not right,’’ he said. “That’s the art of it.’’
The vodka is used to make the 1911 Spirits gin, which is lightly infused with juniper berries and other botanicals to give it a distinct but not overpowering flavor. Both are truly a handmade product: Montanaro bottles four bottles of vodka or gin at a time, then corks the bottles and applies labels by hand.
“It’s not the most complicated process in the world,’’ he said, “but there’s chemistry at work here. It’s definitely an art as much as it is a science.’’
It’s physical work, Montanaro said. It involves constant movement and cleaning of kegs, tanks, gear, surfaces and floors. “A lot of people with a bachelor’s degree or an engineering degree wouldn’t want this job,’’ he said. “Cleaning is 75 percent of it. It’s a food business. I enjoy being on my feet for most of the day, instead of sitting at a desk.’’
He also enjoys working in an industry that’s enjoying a resurgence. The craft beer and hard cider business is booming in New York state, and craft distilling is enjoying what Montanaro called a “major growth phase.’’ Production at 1911 Spirits has doubled since 2013, he noted. Its vodka and gin are available in restaurants and bars throughout New York state – and even on cruise ships.
“Craft distilling is where craft brewing was 10 years ago,” he said. “The big guys own a huge share of the market, but it’s fun to watch the craft industry grow.’’
