Kim Immel, head distiller of Blackhat Distillery, loves a truly pure agave (tequila) spirit but also knows that people who love cocktails come in all different shapes and forms.
“I just started in my basement just making moonshine for myself and my friends [as a hobby], and I know everybody says it, but I never sold a bottle of anything I’ve ever made because this is actually what I wanted to do.” In saying this, Immel wanted to have his work when he went professional stand on its own and not be seen as just something he did on the side. Some distillers might look down on that approach and he didn’t want any “bad blood.”
Immel had worked for 20 years in the railroad industry but this true love for spirits led him to his new calling as head distiller at Blackhat. But before he went pro, Immel progressed to making whiskeys and scotches. His love resides in the idea of being as “classic” as he could be in his creations while still being able to incorporate new elements of purity and taste without compromise.
Love of “Old School” and History at Blackhat Distillery
This love of “old school,”, history and cool ingredients reflects in one of the favorite spirits Immel has ever made called “Forever Rum.” It was a form of distilled mead introduced 5,000 years ago as one of the first beverages of its kind. The reality is that making such a beverage today in terms of scale is prohibitively expensive. As a point of reference, to make a 12-gallon batch today would take 60 pounds of honey which makes little financial sense in a business model as far as larger scale production.
Making small batches of the Forever Rum as he did in his time before going pro reaffirmed his love for this specific spirit but making it at Blackhat would be fiscally not possible. “I’m a sucker for honey but the idea of the history behind it is what actually caught my eye first.” Immel uses this as an example of his approach to pushing the boundaries in his creations, using local products but also the importance of history and the origins of the spirits. It is this knowledge that he hopes molds and enhances Blackhat’s signatures.
But in bringing his approach to a distillery, Immel knows there needs to be an adjustment of process while staying true to one’s roots. “My goal in this from when I started even till now, is if I can’t drink a spirit neat, then I’m not going to put it out there.”
He says that they have great mixologists at Blackhat and they “kind of push me to make a better spirit.” Thereby in the distilling process, he tries to keep in mind that the resulting cocktails need to be spirit-forward (as in balanced while not losing its identity).
When Immel started at Blackhat, the owners gave him the leeway in creating. “I told them, ‘I will not put out a spirit I don’t like.’ And they said, ‘That’s fine with us.’ So, anything that comes through the back door from the distillery to the front of the house is always something that I like and that I believe is worth being on the shelf somewhere. It’s not just all right. If it’s not good enough, it doesn’t hit our bar. And that’s a freedom which I don’t know how many people actually have that in this industry.”
Purity in the Process
The process itself and the ingredients push this forward whether it be Blackhat’s popular Duelers Dark Agave Spirit or their rum. “The better the ingredients you start with, the better your product is going to be. And I think that holds true in distilling, even though there’s so much chemistry and everything that goes on in the still. You’re trying to strip some flavor, save some flavor, but the flavor that you keep is always better with better ingredients.”
Immel says they strive to get the cleanest agave possible which is currently a 100 percent organic blue agave from Mexico. “So, it’s all been steamed and pressed and shredded. So, we just get the juice from that, and it’s as clean as we can get it.”
The same is true of their rum. Blackhat brings in evaporated cane juice from Brazil. They can’t get cane juice in the volume that they would need, hence the evaporated alternative, which still is authentic to the formula. “Again, it’s organic, minimally processed. So, it still carries over a lot of that original flavor.”
Evolving the Palette
Immel’s palette has also evolved but he inherently keeps in mind the customer experience. “I’m still not a big fan of spicy rye, because I think it can be overused.” He also initially was not a fan of agave because, like everybody else, he says he had only had bad tequila. But in understanding and tasting what the gamut could provide, he discovered the right path.
“It sounds kind of bougie, but I wanted to make my agave as high-end as we could get. I like drinking things neat or maybe with one ice cube or two, very little kind of interference. That is why I am a huge fan of Old Fashions. So, I wanted it high-end, but still approachable to most people that would recognize it as a tequila or agave spirit.”
In this way, Immel explains, his agave spirit has a very clean start. And then toward the middle, one gets a woody, earthy, agave kind of taste that is recognizable, “but it doesn’t bowl you over. It’s not over the top and still finishes nice and smooth.”
Immel says he often hears his creation doesn’t taste like agave or a tequila because it doesn’t have that first punch right in your face. But then the middle comes in and they can taste it before the smooth finish. “And that’s what I want. I want somebody who doesn’t think they don’t like a spirit to be able to drink it, taste it and say, ‘Wow!’”
Along with their spirits, the mixers for Blackhat’s cocktails are also made in-house and have been built consistently for to-go drinks made popular during the pandemic. This helps replicate the exact taste from the distillery tasting room. “We squeeze and press our own lemons and our own limes for our juices. We make all of our own liqueurs in-house … all of our own bitters in-house. So, anything basically that goes into the cocktail is ours.”
While he admits this is labor intensive, “We believe that we can do our ingredients better. I think that’s very important. It’s a very proud thing for us to do it that way.”
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