Desert Door Distillery | Driftwood, TX | With Owner Judson Kauffman

Behind The Still

When we heard that the first and only distiller of sotol in the United States since prohibition was located just outside of Austin, Texas, we had to take a trip to check it out."Sotol has been around for almost 1,000 years so it goes back a ways, especially here in Texas and northern Mexico," Desert Door co-founder Judson Kauffman told us. "It comes from the sotol plant. [It] grows in the Chihuahuan Desert, which is only found in northern Mexico, southern Texas and the tiniest corner of southeastern New Mexico."The sotol plant, which resembles an artichoke but 30 times bigger, isn’t farmed, it’s wild harvested in west Texas using machetes, axes and crowbars to harvest the plant. Sotol grows in elevation and Kauffman says it’s that location away from the colonized sea level areas of Mexico that initially earned its historical moniker of being a hillbilly moonshine much like whiskey in Tennessee or Kentucky was."We’re proud to be getting our juice out to the country through RackHouse Whiskey Club," Kauffman noted.Every whiskey tells a story. Sign up to join The Club at www.rackhousewhiskeyclub.com!Support the show