If you don't vacation on the east coast, you may not know that Ocean City, MD is a hotbed of tourist activity in the summer months. But it is also a one-of-a-kind distillery, producing award-winning rum, whiskey, vodka and gin. We were fortunate to taste these Seacrets Distilling Company flavored vodkas, just in time for the hot summer weather and they are really something special. Whether or not you consider yourself a vodka consumer, we think you'll be pleasantly surprised by what Seacrets is producing here.
If you've been around here for awhile, you know that we taste everything neat - at least initially. It can be tough to taste vodka and gin neat, as they are at the lower end of our "hey, lets' drink that today" list. And too often you have to filter out the dozens of flavored vodka that sit on the shelf produced by the companies who are sloshing out a zillion barrels per year. So when we had the opportunity to taste this one, we were pretty excited to try something off of our beaten path.
Seacrets uses their small batch premium vodka as the base here. They add over 500 pounds of fresh blood oranges and navel oranges and let the magic begin. The peels are also steeped for a shorter time for additional flavor and removed prior to the fruit. After filtering out the fruit, they add natural cane sweetener to create the perfect balance of flavor and sweetness. We have to tell you. This really made us shake our heads and smile. It tastes absolutely pure, flavorful and like a breath of summer in a glass. And a bonus......... it's gluten free!
We went on to pour this over ice and sip it and we even started experimenting a bit with this liquor. Four parts of this orange vodka to 1/2 ounce of cream of coconut had us reminiscing to our childhood, eating orange cream popsicles on our bikes. Their website has a great orange crush recipe you need to check out. I know we will be trying it!
ABV: 35.0% (70 proof)
Distillery: Seacrets Distilling Company
Suggested retail price: $24.99
Drink The Bottles score: 88/100
If you love lemon flavored vodka, this is the one you need to put on your list! It's incredibly tasty, affordable, not made with artifical flavors and makes a great John Daly (you know, iced tea and lemon flavored vodka)! Again, this one starts with the Seacrets Distilling Company small batch (and award winning) vodka and fresh whole lemons (over 500 pounds) are introduced to the distillate. Natural cane sweetener is introduced (lemons are sour folks!) and when the aroma, flavors and colors are just right, this goes into the gluten free stunner.
Tasted neat, on ice and in some experimental cocktails, this lemon flavored vodka rose to the occasion for making us both giddy and impressed. Pale gold in color, incredible wafting aromas of lemon and spring breezes greeted us at every sip. This one just tastes "right". It's light, it's very flavorful and you don't get a guilty or full feeling when tasting it. There is literally no burn at the back end we ended up mixing this with a wide array of accoutrements - triple sec, orange juice, blueberry juice, iced tea, ginger bear and cranberry juice to name a few. While some of these drink concoctions were better than others, the Lemon Drop vodka never disappointed.
We're hoping to visit the distillery sometime in the near future. Leighton Moore is the owner/founder and he spared no attention to detail when creating this work of art. Everything in the distillery is an antique from 1933 (the year Prohibition ended) or earlier. That includes the doors, windows, lighting, bricks and more. No detail was spared.
We love what is happening with Seacrets Distilling Company. They have an amazing venue and some really delicious products. In less than 10 years they have created a bold footprint in the beverage industry and on the east coast. Look for unique and great products to keep rolling out of here.
ABV: 35.0% (70 proof)
Distillery: Seacrets Distilling Company
Suggested retail price: $24.99
Drink The Bottles score: 92/100
