Soft Tail Grappa - from the ridiculous to the sublime (or at least pretty good)

The Soft Tail distillery must have thought that their product was golden because it was like breaking into Fort Knox to get into this bottle. It has not one, but two coats of plastic wax over the cork, and it took about five minutes of hacking away with a knife before I was finally able to uncork it (see photo).

Luckily, the product is pretty decent. Grappa is made from grape pomace which is the pulp left over after grapes have been squeezed to make wine. One has to admire the ingenuity of those early European winemakers who wasted nothing in their efforts to make more alcohol. Soft Tail is distilled using traditional Portuguese copper stills in Woodinville, WA from sangiovese pomace. Grappa can often be quite harsh, but this is fairly smooth with some nice fruitiness to it. It also won a silver medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2010. The nude with her backside turned to you on the label (presumably alluding to the Soft Tail name) tilts things back to the ridiculous again, but the quality of the product helps to overcome these idiosyncrasies. 

Soft Tail Sangiovese Grappa is available at only a few Seattle stores.