With little explanation, moonshine now appears on the shelves of liquor stores. A drink synonymous with the illegal, it can be tough for the consumer to stomach this sort of labeling (in addition to the fiery spirits within the bottle). But many of these distilleries claim to have heritage in the moonshining space. White, unaged whiskey from Tennessee, West Virginia, or Pennsylvania attempt to recreate an authentic moonshine experience. Sure, these regions have an unbroken tradition of illicit distillation, but they aren’t the only ones. Puerto Rico, too, makes a sort of moonshine, and Port Morris Distillery (PMD) in the Bronx aims to define what legal moonshine can be, while reimagining a Puerto Rican classic.
Based in the most South Eastern tip of the Bronx, PMD opened 12 years ago in a heavy manufacturing district adjacent to one of the most densely Puerto Rican neighborhoods in the continental United States. The distillery opened with one spirit in mind, pitorro, bringing traditional Puerto Rican moonshine to New York City.
Rafael Barbosa, co-founder of PMD, learned about pitorro from his Tio, or uncle, a long-time pitorrero, or moonshiner, back in Puerto Rico. Barbosa and his business partner, William Valentin, worked with Tio on bringing his traditional craft to the highly regulated space of distilling in America. But New York State’s Farm Distillery Act in 2007 lowered the cost of going into business. Barbosa comments, “Craft distilling has allowed us to show who we are and to open a business with minimal dollars.” Like the outlaws-turned-entrepreneurs of Appalachia, PMD is making moonshine legal.
As PMD was developing their recipe, they considered the difficulties of bringing an authentic moonshine to market. But, Barbosa was lucky–his uncle was a real pitorrero–so they drew on Tio’s experience. “My uncle’s recipe down in Puerto Rico would be brown sugar–he stayed away from molasses because it had this gassy smell which we call el tufo, you can taste diesel in it–and from there he ferments with different types of fruit depending on what is in season.” Tio would ferment the mixture like a wine and then distill it. Barbosa likens the process to that of a Peruvian pisco or an Italian grappa, rather than the malting and mashing that American whiskey-shiners rely on.
The thing is, most Puerto Ricans know pitorro as a drink, but have no idea how to make it or what goes into it. Making a legitimate product required some reflection. Barbosa explains, “Turning it into a legal process, we tried to stay true to what pitorro was. What is the moonshine quality? If we just turn it into a rum, that’s all it is. If you’re going to call something a moonshine, it’s homemade, it’s what your family did. So what my uncle did is he asked, “How can we make it a New York moonshine?” You have apples, you have honey. Instead of adding products from outside, we ferment with local products and sugar.” Locally available fermentables reminded Tio about the way Puerto Ricans make pitorro–with whatever sugars they have on hand, the seasonal fruit.
On top of this, PMD did something that almost no other new distillery does–they built their own still from scratch. Tio brought the knowledge of Puerto Rican still building to the Bronx, and Valentin, who is a professional sheet metal worker, made the piece come to life. The first batches of PMD pitorro dripped from a still that might as well have been set up behind someone’s house in Añasco.
Moonshine recipe, check. Moonshine still, check. What more could PMD require to relate their legal product to its less-than-legit origins. The answer, once again, lies in Tio. For the first five years of PMD’s operation, Tio hand distilled the spirits. He was not professionally trained by some master distiller, but learned through hands-on experience boiling and condensing the McCoy Verdadero. I, for one, will not question his qualifications.
While I would argue that PMD is making something that draws direct inspiration from illegal pitorro, there are clearly non-traditional aspects to what they produce. And Barbosa doesn’t ignore the fact that they are taking liberties with the cultural category.
The most obvious example is PMD’s añejo category. “My uncle’s lifelong dream was to age it. So we took the pitorro and started aging it in 2013. I still have around 6 gallons from that original barrel, and when I go to Puerto Rico, I bring my uncle a bottle so he can taste it.” Puerto Rican pitorreros might age their booze, just not in the kinds of barrels that PMD can get in the US distilling market.
As a legal distillery, PMD can sail on uncharted waters. Barbosa explains that pitorro is not bound by the laws that whiskey or bourbon are. They are categorically free to experiment–like a true moonshiner. “The way we age is different from others because we are a different category. We don’t have to do it for seven years or whatever.” Often, they draw from barrels and replace what they took, or they bend liquor from new barrels and old barrels.
Apparently, you can age the stuff in coconuts too. Barbosa excitedly tells me about this traditional technique: “You can take a coconut, put pitorro in the coconut, shove that coconut in the ground. When I travel with my uncle in Puerto Rico across the island, he would stop on the side of the road and go to where he buries the coconuts. Six months later, there is a coconut pitorro–very sweet even without added sugar. 100-110 proof. It’s a knockout.”
While they are not burying booze-filled coconuts around the Bronx, PMD does make a coconut-flavored pitorro, bottled at 70 proof, with added sweetener–something Barbosa claims they did first. The resulting liquor is a clear spirit and the first taste is that of simple syrup, but then a strong alcohol flavor comes in and finishes with a kick of coconut. It’s like a rum-soaked coconut cake. It makes you wonder about the buried coconuts. It makes you want to go dig around in the Puerto Rican soil.
Toeing the line or traditional and innovative, PMD makes a spiked coquito, or Puerto Rican eggnog. During the holidays, families typically come together to hand make the drink from coconut cream, condensed milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and rum to taste. Instead, PMD produces a pitorro spiked coquito that is shelf stable and dairy free. Normally seasonal and perishable, their version is available year round. The question is, who drinks eggnog in the summer?
Barbosa understands–how do you run a business on a seasonal product? And he enlightens me, “Puerto Ricans are really big on the holiday season. Our holiday season begins the day after Thanksgiving and stretches to the Festival of San Sebastián which is around January 21st. That’s a big part of our business. What made it easier for us is that New York is the mecca of Puerto Ricans, although it’s losing that distinction to Florida.” His business, to some degree, is seasonal, but the season is long, and the customers are plentiful. But that’s not all.
PMD is not just to the Puerto Rican crowd. Non-Puerto Ricans in New York City buy his product, and he sells to liquor stores downtown. He explains, “What we’ve learned is that you always want to start with your people, but in New York we have a lot of people outside of our community who are in tune with ‘Made in NYC’ and supporting small businesses. Puerto Ricans are culturally more likely to support the larger brands. We have a broad mix of people we get here.” By removing the drink from its cultural milieu, PMD creates a new product, unbound by seasonality and cultural memory.
I am one of those non-Puerto Ricans who can enjoy the coquito without thinking of my grandmother. But, I can still taste the festive flavor in sweet cinnamon. The coquito is bottled at 50 proof and has an approachable burn mellowed out by creaminess. The flavor is a combination of apple, cinnamon, oats, and coconut. It reminds me of the cinnamon apple Quaker oatmeal that I had as a child–but you probably shouldn’t have this stuff for breakfast.
What PMD has done with coquito, they have also done with six other flavors.
Their Abuelita, or Grandmother, combines raisin, cinnamon, and prune. These are some of the common additions to local pitorros back down on the island, although recipes depend on the town. These flavors, in general, bring the Puerto Rican tradition of macerating fruit in liquor to the Bronx. I am told, “Shake the bottle before drinking it. There’s real stuff in it.” Indeed, wisps of honey or sediment of fruit pulp are quick to settle down.
PMD is in the craft distilling business, but they stick to a lot of what makes pitorro a moonshine. Locally available crops for fermenting, experimental techniques, and family-inspired recipes are the backbone of true moonshining. PMD has been able to play with the tradition like any pittorero would back at home. They have changed some things, but that’s what is great about moonshine–there are no rules. So, if you want to come close to having a Puerto Rican moonshine experience, you can visit the bar at PMD where the walls are covered with a façade mimicking Old San Juan. The light pastel panels go well with the silkiness of the coquito, the sweetness of the coconut, and the dozens of jugs still holding real fruit in a boozy suspension.
Reading through the libraries in Lancaster County, you come across a variety of entries on beverages. The Pennsylvania Dutch made homemade wines, self-medicated with whiskey, drank wild mint tea, and even spiced a sugary drink with some herbal bark called “spice hecka.”
Cassava is a common crop with a curious secret. It is full of cyanide. Raw cassava can kill adult humans, but modern and traditional processing techniques make the tuber edible. In the case of Amazonian people, fermentation makes cassava drinkable. Slightly alcoholic beers made from the root are common across the Amazon Basin.
Blue corn is native to the agriculture of New Mexico. Indigenous people in the region developed the crop. While it has been used in food and drink for thousands of years, New Mexico’s craft breweries are just taking notice. Now, breweries across the state are experimenting with the corn’s color, flavor, and texture in pilsners, ales, and lagers.
A review of cook books and culinary histories in Savannah and Charleston reveals a variety of herbal teas, complex punches, and foraged fermentable. While sweet tea appears in these texts, it seems that the drinks of the Low Country past were far more colorful.
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