The tasting room at 10th Street Distillery in San Jose features windows looking into the distillery, showing off a stainless steel boiler and two copper pot stills with otherworldly-shaped domes that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Joan Miró’s surrealist paintings. It’s all connected by more stainless steel and designed by founders Virag Saksena and Vishal Gauri.
“It took us five years of work,” Saksena told San José Spotlight. “Understanding how each little knob affects things. Running experiments. Deciding the angle of the lyne arm and the volume of the helmet. Learning to make great whiskey.”
Growing up in India, Saksena only had the local product, which was made from triple distilled molasses with a little whiskey essence added for flavor which he described as “one-dimensional.” When he first tried a single malt, he said it was an epiphany on how complex and rich the flavor could be. After falling in love with two different aged whiskies, he was dismayed when the supplies of both dried up and became unavailable.
“The retailers told me there were limited releases,” he said. “I thought it was some marketing scam to justify the high price. I had a sense of loss of something I would never taste again and it had happened twice.”
Having home-brewed beer, Saksena asked himself: how hard could it be to make a good whiskey and does it need to age for 30 years? He traveled to Scotland to apprentice at Kilchoman Distillery — only to discover what he learned there doesn’t apply to California.
The difference, he said, is in the “angel share,” the amount of whiskey that evaporates over time. In Scotland, where it is humid, a barrel loses 3% in a year, mostly in evaporated alcohol. In California, the dry heat takes 10-15% a year, mostly in water.
“The advantage of that higher share,” Saksena said, “is in two to three years, I get something which beats the pants off other 15- to 20-year-old whiskeys. And the proof is my latest Dragon Triple Cask.”
Rated Best of Show at the 2024 Whiskies of the World competition in San Francisco, the Dragon Triple is the distillery’s flagship and best seller. At an ABV of 54.9%, this full-bodied whiskey is beautifully smooth with caramel, vanilla and dried fruit notes riding on a layer of toasted oak and a light and lingering finish.
One important factor in the making of 10th Street Distillery whiskey, Saksena said, is to double the fermentation time. After the initial dose of yeast does its work, which can take up to two and a half days, the mash is left to rest for another two or three days, which allows local sourdough yeast in the air to reinfect the mash.
“It makes a richer and more complex whiskey,” Saksena said. “It also gives it a sense of terroir. You can’t make sourdough bread in New York like you can’t make this whiskey in Texas or Tennessee.”
Following fermentation and distillation, most whiskey is placed in used oak bourbon casks, which have been shaved, toasted and re-charred for primary aging.
“The casks are still depleted,” Saksena said, “so they are not as intense. But it kicks up the caramel and vanilla notes, reminding people of bourbon, even though it’s a single malt whiskey.”
From there, the whiskey is shaped by the next cask it occupies. The Wine Cask Finish Peated Single Malt — which “Whisky Bible” author Jim Murray named his “Liquid Gold” best of 2023 winner — is finished in a pinot noir cask, which gives it fruity notes to complement its smokey undertones.
“It’s light as a feather, which makes it approachable,” Manuel Rocha, Jr., a first-time visitor to the tasting room, told San José Spotlight. “You get the smell of vanilla and sweetness, but you also get the taste of fresh earth on a rainy day.”
Other whiskeys from 10th Street Distillery, like the California Coast Blend, remain in straight oak casks long enough to pick up that familiar chardonnay tannin. The winner of gold medals at the 2020 Whiskies of the World and 2021 New York World Wine and Spirits competitions, this combination of two 10th Street single malts and two pot-distilled whiskies from the old Seagram’s plant in Lawrenceburg, Indiana is a perfect entry-level whiskey.
Though on the opposite end of the Dragon’s high price point, the blend is just as easy to drink. Surprisingly rich and complex with notes of stone fruits, it is light enough to accompany a meal and serious enough to sip as an aperitif. Given an unprecedented 94 points from the Beverage Testing Institute, its smoothness and character give it a luxurious versatility.
“One of the most gratifying parts of the job,” Saksena said, “is when customers tell us how amazing our products are. They drink it not because it is a local whiskey, but because it is superior to whiskies from Scotland, Japan, India and Australia. We are putting San Jose on the map.”
Contact Robert Eliason at [email protected].
Editor’s Note: The Biz Beat is a series highlighting local small businesses and restaurants in Silicon Valley. Know a business you’d like to see featured? Let us know at [email protected].
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