Communing with Lost Spirits

As I mentioned on the blog about the harbor tour we took a few months ago, we love checking out fun local spots; this is something we've always enjoyed, and we credit our families for instilling a healthy sense of adventure in both of us when we were just tiny human beings.  As part of this, I mentioned receiving several different email lists for local attractions, but we also subscribe to LA Magazine.  While it sometimes frustrates me to see so few amazing Long Beach options mentioned in the mag, it does give us a ton of good information on fun things happening in the northern regions of the county.  As you've probably seen on the blog in the past, one of the things we love most is a tour where we get to learn things (preferably about things being made), so when I read about Lost Spirits Distillery, I knew we needed to plan a visit.  Last weekend, we finally did!

Ta da!

We started out our day in our normal Saturday fashion - I went for an 8 mile run and Chris made it to 35 minutes on his bike trainer (getting better each time!).  We cleaned up and made it out of the house by 10:15, so we could park at the Del Amo metro station and catch the blue line, heading north into downtown LA.  We exited the relatively calm train (seriously, ridiculously calm, particularly for the blue line) at the 7th Street/Metro Center station and walked just a few blocks to our lunch destination, Industriel Urban Farm Cuisine.  We'd not visited Industriel before, and we were extremely pleased with our choice - we will be back for sure.

It was pretty quiet when we entered, so we didn't need the reservations I'd made.  We were seated right away and we ordered a cocktail (me) and a beer (Chris).  After receiving our drinks and ordering food, we surveyed our surroundings, including the cute honey bear chandelier:

Fancy hipster restaurant photo

Our food came out in an appropriate amount of time, and it was absolutely delicious.  I ordered the Madame Swine (essentially, a croque madame) and Chris had the burger, and we were both happy with our choices (even if Chris had to help me eat mine - it was a gigantic, rich plate of food):

All the noms!

While we ate, the staff checked in on us frequently.  Our server was an attentive young lady, but her boss also stopped by every now and then.  We just ordered our mains and drinks, so we were a bit surprised when the manager dropped off appetizer ("share") plates for us, but we figured it was just an oversight, since he hadn't taken our order himself.  The next time our server came by, she made a comment about us not needing share plates (giving us a "right?" look, which we responded to with a nod and affirmative comment), and she took them away.  We got our lunch entrees, and as the manager stopped to check on us, he again dropped off "share" plates; again, our server came by and stole them away.  We didn't anticipate being involved in Plate Gate 2018, but we certainly didn't hold this against the fine folks at Industriel, and we got a good laugh out of the situation.

With a bit more time to go until our 1:30 tour at Lost Spirits, we next wandered to Spring Street Bar, a local watering hole that 1) had lots of beer on tap and 2) looked good on Yelp (two of our main qualifiers, truly).  Like any good local, they had the Croatia-Russia World Cup game on the tvs over the bar, so we settled in to watch some futbol and have a drink.

As we were watching, the power blipped

(it was crazy hot this day - over 100 in LA,

so we had a few rolling brownouts), 

and when the tvs came back up,

we couldn't get the game again on FSN.

We watched it on Telemundo for a bit,

and all of us there kidded that

Putin had gotten sick of us watching Russia lose.

"If I can't watch Russia win,

no one can!"

Eventually, it was time to head to the tour!  We initially planned on walking the mile to the distillery, but as we drew closer, we noticed the area deteriorating rapidly.  While we see homeless folks in most parts of the city (and Long Beach as well - it's a huge issue this area faces), our route had tent cities set up on both sides of the road, blocking any sort of walking access, unless we felt like strolling through everyone's living room (essentially).  We decided to head back by a block and call an Uber to take us the rest of the short distance.

See the arrow?

See what it's pointing at?

Yes, that is a real place.

Once we arrived at Lost Spirits, we headed inside to check in for our tour.  We were there a bit early (of course we were), so we had ample time to drink some water (it was hella hot in there - the distillery is normally around 80, but the heat was severe due to the outside weather conditions) and scout out the lobby (as well as to say hi to the AI bot TESSA in the bathroom).

Getting ready to head inside

The magical door we'd soon enter

to start our trip and tasting

Have you ever been sweating so hard

you took a picture of stationary objects, 

but it was super blurry?

The spoons and watches were the tour tickets

for different groups.

Ours got chunks of barrel staves.

While much more essential to spirit-making

than silverware or accessories,

they weren't nearly as cool to hold.

In addition to tasting some seriously good rum and whiskey, our main draw in going to visit Lost Spirits was their tour.  Now, we're not super picky - we'll tour just about anything - but this one is legit.  When LS moved to LA (they were in the Monterey area prior to this location - in Castroville, which we recently visited to see the world's largest artichoke - remember?), they asked the power grid folks if they could have a bit more juice, as things ramped up and they wanted to expand their production.  As is normal in this area (CA in general, really), the approval process was going to take months, if not years, to occur.  Instead of going that route, they instead built, essentially, a river through the facility to act as the method of cooling down the warmer parts of the distilling process.  One of the partners, who had a background in designing rides/shows for theme parks, rationalized that if the distillery already had a river, it should have a boat to float down the river.  LS started giving tours to friends and then friends of those friends, and they eventually started charging and opening them to the public (if you want to read more about the actual distillation process - as well as how they make such amazing stuff, click here.  LA Magazine does a really good job of summing it up).

Our tour started out with us strolling through the fancy doors shown above and into a room ringed with high-backed leather chairs where our first sample - of the Navy-style rum - awaited us.

Mmm...rum!

The Navy-style rum was strong stuff - LS likes to keep their proof levels high; their philosophy is you can always add water to something to make it a bit less robust, but you can't work in the opposite direction.  They gave us some information on their process, including the science behind how they use high heat and light blasts to age their spirits, finishing over the course of a week what most other places take years to create.  I have to admit to being so sweaty that I didn't catch much of this, but I'm sure Chris could tell you more.  I do remember that this is where we learned about the origin of the word "proof" when discussing alcohol - here's Wikipedia to fill you in.

After this, we took our glasses with us and headed through a side door and down a ramp for our boat ride!  The ride lasted about 25 seconds, but it achieved its purpose in moving us from the first section of the tour to the next spot, where we learned more about distillation, including standing in the hottest room in the entire world.  We quickly advanced again, this time under the eye of the founder of LS, Bryan Davis (the LA Mag article mentions his enthusiasm multiple times, and they are not kidding - he is psyched about his job, and he should be - it's cool), who poured us our next sample, the Jamaica rum.

Our next taste in hand, we walked through the newly installed rainforest (a patio/porch covered in misters, which was very welcome at this point) and into LS' main lab area.  We got to check out all of their cool equipment, including the angel tubing structures (named for the "angel's share" common to bourbon/whisky/whiskey making).

Chris: "make sure you get a picture of the tower!"

Angel close up

We left the lab with another tour guide (I think we had 6 total, maybe?) who started our journey to Whiskey Island.  We left our Glencairn glasses and switched instead to teacups, which seemed much more appropriate to tasting whiskey.  

Fancy.pants.

Whiskey Island cat

One of the two whiskies we tried.

Both were quite good.

With our teacups in hand, we entered yet another room where we hopped on a converted merry-go-round, which spun us slowly in circles for a few minutes - the lights went out and we saw stars glowing on the walls - and eventually helped us make it to Whiskey Island proper.  We entered the Island through a back passageway and met yet another guide who sat us at a large table and poured another set of samples for us (we had about 12 people on our tour), giving us information on the different whiskies as we tasted and looked around at the lush vegetation, taking in the different skeletons mounted on the wall (one seemed to be a dragon).

Once we were done there, our final guide escorted us through yet another hidden passageway, and we ended our tour in...the gift shop.  It really is just like Disneyland!  Although we were done tasting, our tour wasn't over quite yet, as we had one last marvel to behold, this time from the animatronic birds scattered around the shop, in LS' tribute to the Enchanted Tiki Room.

One of our bird hosts -

part of their spiel including them

actually saying, "tweet, tweet, chirp, chirp."

It was pretty outstanding.

We were more than happy to pick up a bottle of Jamaica rum to take home, the only option they had left at the time, but we'll be looking for their other offerings in nearby BevMo and Total Wine locations.

After all of that high-proof sampling, we were ready for a snack, so we headed to Zinc Cafe and Market, just a few blocks away.  We rehydrated with some iced tea and had some great guacamole before we called an Uber to take us back through Skid Row and to the metro stop.

Noms - guac!

It was back on the blue line and home to Long Beach where we enjoyed some ice cream at the Long Beach Creamery before heading back to spend the rest of the evening with the kiddo (and catching up on Humans).

Said kiddo, wondering where we are.

Yes, we spy on the dog using the security camera.

Why else would we have one?

Despite the scorching weather, our visit to Lost Spirits was amazing, and we can't wait to go back!  Apparently, they change the tour pretty often, so if you come out and see us, we'll have to plan another trip!

Later!

Amy