About Sloop Betty Vodka
Launched in late 2010, Sloop Betty vodka is a hand-crafted, wheat vodka. Smooth, with a crisp undertone, the pure, natural ingredients of a small batch vodka come through as you savor every delicious drop. Designed with both vodka connoisseurs and those new to the pleasure of the cocktail hour, Sloop Betty can be enjoyed alone or mixed in a drink. Learn more about Sloop Betty.

About Micro-Distilling
Micro-distilling is the comparatively small scale, hand-crafted, artesian process of producing distilled spirits under the watchful eye of a passionate distiller. The most rapidly growing segment of the American distilling industry, micro-distilling has evolved from the days of “moon shining” to a stature, legitimacy, and quality often exceeding that of major distilleries.

Each production batch is carefully blended with the finest ingredients, distilled and filtered with the utmost care using the most modern of equipment without sacrificing the artisan’s contribution to hand-crafting.

Products of micro-distilleries are winning taste testing awards throughout the world, capturing the imagination and enthusiasm of spirits connoisseurs. The industry has grown from just 15 to more than 200 micro-distilleries in the last decade - Blackwater Distilling is the only Maryland based micro-distillery.

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About the Production Process
Blackwater Distilling will use hand crafted distilling equipment custom fabricated in the United States in the production of each of its planned spirits lines. This equipment is of the highest quality available globally and will be purchased from an acknowledged industry leader. It also allows Blackwater Distilling to utilize locally available agricultural resources as much as possible. This is a key corporate goal for multiple reasons, but the primary focus is on keeping as much financial impact in the local area as possible, and being kind to the environment by not shipping key ingredients from across the country, or globe, in an effort to shave a couple cents off per pound. Sourcing ingredients locally is a key differentiator for Blackwater Distilling.

Grain Vodka
As with any spirit, vodka begins its life as a grain of some sort. Blackwater Distilling’s vodka is primarily made with wheat, an abundant resource on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The grain is ground coarsely, processed into a wort and yeast is added to begin the fermentation process. Fermentation is the only process which creates alcohol, regardless of the beverage alcohol being produced.

Distillation
Distilling is simply a process of selecting chemical compounds out of a solution based on the temperature at which different liquids turn into a vapor. The easiest way to describe distillation is that it takes a fermented grain solution, very similar to beer, and boils that beer.

Distillation does not create alcohol, but it does allow the distiller to remove other substances from the beer, until the end product is a solution with a higher alcohol concentration. This process is repeated many times, until the end product (in the case of vodka) is a very pure alcohol with an alcohol by volume (ABV) exceeding 95%.

This is unique for beverage alcohol – most spirits are not distilled to this high degree of purity prior to being diluted, bottled and shipped to customers. Gin reaches about 60-70% ABV before dilution and packaging, as does whisky prior to barreling. In these examples, each product is heavily dependent on flavorings that are either added to the process as botanicals, in the case of gin, or slowly, over time, by the wood of the barrel, in the case of whisky. These products must be less pure to start with in order for the flavors to achieve their potential.