Local holiday spirits: Mud Puddle Chocolate and Holiday Spiced Liqueur

Both of these spirits come from distilleries on Portland's distillery row, a destination well worth visiting if you ever find yourself in Oregon. All of the 5 distilleries offer tastings of their wares which range from gin and rum to various liqueurs. Deco Distilling makes rum, infused and otherwise, and I thought the Holiday Spiced Liqueur was the best of the bunch. It has much of the same flavor characteristics of mulled wine (though in this case it's mulled rum), with cinnamon, cloves, allspice and other typical mulling spices. Sugar is also added to provide a slightly sweet base. It's a lovely sipping liqueur that evokes an evening of sitting by a Christmas tree watching a fire in the fireplace. It's only available at the distillery for a limited time, though I image that it'll show up annually if it sells well.

Somewhat more sophisticated is Mud Puddle Chocolate from New Deal Distillery. This distillery likes experimenting with creating a wide variety of alcohols from infused vodkas to gin to various liqueurs (many of which don't seem to be listed on their website). The Mud Puddle Chocolate is a heady blast of bitter chocolate that fans of dark chocolate will love. New Deal created Mud Puddle by infusing their own distilled vodka with cocoa beans. No sugar is added, so it's not sweet at all, but the flavor is incredible. This isn't strictly a holiday spirit since it's available all year, but it fits in well with the season. It's available at a number of Western Washington liquor stores.