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- Damnation Alley is a now closed distillery that had been located in Belmont, MA.
- I got my bottle on Saint Patrick's Day 2018 on my only visit to the distillery.
- This was a short-lived and extremely small operation so you aren't likely to ever run across a bottle.
Damnation Alley Distillery, so called because of the nickname of the first one-way street in Boston, was about as small as you can imagine. The distilling room is less than 1000 square feet. They made all their products in just three 26-gallon stills. Their tasting room, small on its own, doubled as an aging room with a handful of 5-gallon oak barrels decorating the room. The entire operation had about fifteen feet of frontage in a modern strip mall under a sign that simply read "DISTILLERY".
Damnation Alley made an attempt to use Massachusetts grown grains whenever possible. Unfortunately, their gin wasn't one of the spirits they are doing this with. They used barley as their base material and then distill it with a variety of botanicals. This base was really significant, because when tasted neat, the barley gives the gin a finish reminiscent of graham crackers.
Damnation Alley Gin was made in very small batches. I have a bottle of batch "3e", as best I can read it, and bottle #15 of that batch. The bottling date is also listed on the back label, but I really can't read that. For such a small distillery, all of their spirits were big on flavor. Damnation Alley Gin is no exception. In addition to juniper, the most noticeable tastes are grapefruit and cardamom. This, and that batch I bought rang in at 88.2 proof, makes for a powerful gin and tonic,
It is a damn shame that Damnation Alley didn't last. They were open for just about five years, but shuttered on March 31, 2019. Their gin was good and I have enjoyed it both neat and in a gin and tonic. My bottle isn't empty yet, so it's not yet gone forever, but it will be sooner or later.
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