This week’s drink of the week is an original recipe personally crafted by the owners of South Carolina’s Firefly Distillery. Jim Irvin and Scott Newitt first had a meeting of the minds as associates at Jim’s first home growing venture, Irvin House Vineyards. Both had a distinct vision of a distillery that represented their southern roots and the good fun in brewing your very own beverage alcohol. So they started with a 55 gallon stainless steel tank on a propane burner. They got it fired up and began distilling from grapes, corn, sugar and all kinds of local and regional ingredients. They ran batches until they worked out the kinks and landed on some recipes they both really liked. Today, the batches run slow and small to ensure quality and purity. It is a constant hands-on operation with someone always tending the stills, testing the distillation runs, putting labels on jars and taste testing the spirits.
Firefly Moonshine is 100.7 proof, or 50.3% alcohol by volume, and therefore packs three times the punch of your everyday liquor. But “The Poptart”, named for owner Scott Newitt’s dog, tastes more like a fruit spritzer than a potent cocktail. The Poptart is one of the Distillery’s very own personal recommendations and consists of two types of their home brewed corn whiskey moonshine. Add one part Firefly White Lightning Moonshine and one part Firefly Peach Moonshine to a cool glass, paying close attention to just how much of this highly pure liquor you would like to serve. Next, fill the cup with club soda and add a splash of cranberry juice for a tart, fruity twist. Add a twist of a lime wedge for acidity to balance the moonshine’s alcoholic flavor and voilà, the Poptart is complete. Proceed with caution. Though refreshing, the Poptart tends to deceive and is much stronger than it seems…Get your Firefly Moonshine fix and the spirits necessary for fixing up a Poptart of your own at Gleeson’s Liquors of Ocean View. Gleeson’s is one of the only local retailers of this tried and true representation of old-time southern moonshine.
By Megan Kummer