Road Trips can get long and tedious- especially as your near your final destination. Years of “Are we there yet?” come vividly to mind at those moments…
It was on one such long road trip, as I was cruising through the beautiful, but on-the-verge-of-becoming-monotonous countryside of Eastern Idaho when I spotted a sign for a vodka distillery. The sign was for Grand Teton Distillery and read ‘Tours daily’.
Heck yeah! I had never toured a distillery and I definitely needed to escape from my car and stretch my poor legs- Here was my opportunity for both.
Driving up to the distillery I had low expectations. I figured it was going to be more like a store front and that I had about a 25% chance of actually getting a tour, but, gosh, darn it, I was going to try! Turns out it was well worth the stop. An educational experience and I even left with some goodies!
Grand Teton Distillery
Grand Teton Distillery is an award-winning vodka that has been selling its vodka since 2012. Beginning as a small family business, started by a retired couple is slowly blossoming into an incredibly successful endeavor. Grand Teton Vodka is consistently winning awards and accolades from the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and Proof66.com. What makes it so unique from other vodka distilleries is the use of potatoes- less than 3% of all vodkas are made with something other than grain. All of their vodka is made with 100% Idaho potato.
Grand Teton uses Idaho potatoes for all of their vodka, but since potatoes hold so much moisture (somewhere in the neighborhood of 75% water is in a potato) it would take forever to dehydrate them down to a usable state, so they use potato flakes rather than whole potatoes. According to the tour guide, these flakes are incredibly similar to the boxed, instant potato flakes that you might find in the supermarket. Add small amounts of water, yeast and other nutrients and you’re on your way to making some mighty fine vodka.
The vodka at this point is 190 proof alcohol- definitely not drinkable. So potent, in fact, that we were allowed to dip our fingers into the liquid to “taste” the flavor. The smell silently wafting off of the canister was so potent though that I declined.
The equipment used in the fermentation and distilling processes of the vodka cost tens of thousands of dollars. The stainless steel still pictured above with a copper column alone cost over $30,000! Some of the equipment, like the high efficiency still pictured in the photo above, are the only ones of its kind in the USA. Quite impressive
At the end of the tour we were even allowed to do a tasting. Because it is hard liquor they are only allowed to give visitors a taste of three items. Top on the list was the potato Vodka, of course. Not being a normal connoisseur of vodka I can’t tell you how it compares to a non-potato vodka, but it definitely tasted smooth and sweet. I even bought some to take home! My other samples were of the Teton Moonshine that they sell.
If you go: Grand Teton Distillery, 1755 N. Highway 33, Driggs, ID 83422
When: Weekday hours are 10:00 to 6:00, Saturdays open from 11 to 6.