Local vermouth with T.W. Hollister & Co.

This weeks interview dives into the world of vermouth making with Kyle Hollister of T.W. Hollister & Co. Despite the abundance of grapes, there’s very little local vermouth actually made and sold. Vermouth is technically a wine and in this issue we get into how vermouth is made, Kyle’s family history, and much more.

Plus this week we’re on a Paso Robles Cabernet kick for our featured wines.

Interview with T.W. Hollister & Co.

Family names can be important to maintain. Whether it’s charting a new path or continuing a legacy, we all feel that pressure at some point. In this week’s interview we sit down with Clinton Kyle Hollister, whose family has called Santa Barbara County home for over 150 years!

Armed with a rich family history, a love for the region, and a vision for how to tell his family’s story, we sat down to talk about how he and his wife Ashley are looking to make T.W. Hollister vermouth a respected brand name.

Q: The Hollister family is a bit of a household name in Santa Barbara, but what’s the backstory for how the family originally settled here in Santa Barbara?

A: Sure, I'm now the fifth generation living in Santa Barbara. My family moved from Ohio to California in 1854. The main patriarch of the family that brought everyone here was Colonel William Welles Hollister. He, along with his brother and sister, led the first large transcontinental sheep drive, bringing ten thousand merino sheep from Ohio to California with a plan to supply Gold miners with meat and high quality wool for clothing. The party took the Southern route from Salt Lake City to avoid the winter snows on the Sierra Nevadas which brought them to Santa Barbara where they stopped to pastured their flocks. The Colonel fell in love with the place, and vowed to return one day.

When the Civil War happened the Colonel's wool business boomed as prices became very favorable. The Colonel took that opportunity to sell his holdings in San Benito County and move to Santa Barbara.

He and his wool broker partners came here with a plan to establish a large ranching and farm business. There was a severe drought at the time so many of the Spanish ranchos were struggling financially. He and his partners bought six land grants. At the height of their business, the Colonel and his partners actually owned a third of Santa Barbara County.

Colonel Hollister was a bit of a serial entrepreneur and had a really strong passion for agriculture and the development of California as an agricultural place.

Q: How did the idea of starting TW Hollister Vermouth come about?

A: We started this as a small project because of our passions for creative branding, storytelling, and family history. We had these Hollister family treasure troves of amazing photos and stories from the 1800’s that we wanted to share. There’s all these interesting stories and places that pop up in our history, so it was a process of diving in and trying to understand who the family was.

With the Hollister family’s legacy in California being in agriculture, that just appeared to be the natural medium to tell the story. And grapes were the main agricultural crop that felt attainable for us to move in to.

Q: Why vermouth instead of wine?

A: Wine is the study and story of a place, soil, and climate. And an expression of that particular ecosystem.

With vermouth, you have an additional element in the botanicals. Botanicals have their own story; where they’re grown, who they’re grown by, how they got here. So it became a great platform to tell our family stories while also honoring and supporting the local farmers from the central coast that inspire us.

There was also the market opportunity. There’s not a whole lot of domestically producer vermouths. The majority of the products are from Europe. We’re a small family brand and we wanted to tackle this as efficiently as possible. With neither of us having winemaking backgrounds, we found a winemaker named Carl Sutton who had just closed down his winery up in the bay area and also had experience in making vermouth. He guided us through the production process and help us to develop our distinct recipe.

Q: Can you touch on the botanical recipe and how you decide what types of botanicals go into the vermouths?

A: Our goal was to develop a product that would work both on it’s own, enjoyed over the rocks or as a spritz, and in a bar program as an ingredient in a cocktail. We also wanted the product to speak of the place, and the region from which it was born. So once we went up to Hollister Ranch on the Gaviota Coast, and the local botanical gardens to start forage for different botanicals and see what could work. We’d look through old books on indigenous medicine and herbs to see what had been used by the people that knew this land best.

We ended up finding a couple of really interesting expressions, one of my favorites is Hummingbird Sage. It has this floral bitter note that works really well in the vermouth. We use as many locally grown ingredients as we can find. We use green coffee beans from the Winchester Canyon, locally grown wormwood and citrus from Ojai. There’s so many unique expressions of things that grow here in California that aren’t necessarily native, but add a delicious and unique element to our vermouths.

Apart from the unique botanicals we use, one of the major things that separate us from other producers is that we use local honey as a sweetener in all our vermouths. Most European vermouths use either sugar, beet extract, or grape musk of some sort to sweeten their products, but we wanted to do something that was unique to us and this place. So the use of delicious locally harvested sage blossom honey brings in all these wonderful native flavors.

Q: What varietals of base wines are you using?

A: We pop around the market for different base wines depending on the year. There’s always a surplus of bulk wines in California, so we peel off some of that existing product that would otherwise go to waste. So our model is buying the bulk wine to then put through the botanical macerations. Our latest batch of bulk wine comes from Santa Maria and we try to always keep it local to the central coast.

For varietals of base wine, we always use white wine. We’re looking for a really clean, finished wine that has a nice acid profile and mild floral notes. We’ve used Grenache Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, and our current base wine has some chardonnay as well.

Q: What differentiates the two bottles of vermouth?

A: There’s a unique blend of botanicals in each and with the red vermouth there’s significantly more honey. You can really taste and feel the honey in the red vermouth for sure. There’s also organic caramel in the red vermouth, which is where the red-cola color comes from.

Q: Can you speak to the quality of ingredients you use in your vermouths?

A: It’s important to us that we’re using the highest quality ingredients we can find. It’s frustrating that you go to a nice table dinner, order an Aperol spritz and Aperol is still using something like red food color number-whatever in it. Something we’re really proud of is being as close to possible as a farm to table alcohol product. Even if an ingredient is coming from Europe, it’s coming from there because that’s the best place in the world where we could find that product.

Q: What are you favorite recipes to make with your vermouths?

A: For cocktails our main go-to’s are a Mezcal Negroni and a Gin Martini. We like to keep it simple with even ratios on things. A lesser known cocktail is the Bamboo, which includes dry sherry, vermouth, and bitters. It’s really fun.

We’ve also had clients use the vermouth in cooking. We have some Texas customers that make shrimp with the vermouth. Whisk it around and it creates the most insane flavors from the botanicals. There’s also a local chef, Brittany Mead, who does a Mary’s Chicken cooked with it and constantly basted with our red vermouth.

Q: What’s the best way for people to support you?

A: People can go to twhollister.co to join our club, where we have quarterly shipments of our bottles. And when you’re at your local bar, if you see us on the shelves, request your drink be made with one of our vermouths!

A huge thanks to Kyle and Ashley for chatting with us! If you’re looking to start mixing up your own cocktails using T.W. Hollister vermouth, head to their website below where you can order their uniquely crafted vermouths. They are also widely available in local grocery stores along the central coast.

Uncorked

Mac and Billy ‘M’ Cabernet Sauvignon

The ‘M’ Cabernet from Mac and Billy is the only wine they make under this label. Coming from Paso Robles, most Cabernets need some time to age and allow the tannins to mellow out. This wine is an exception. It’s bold on the nose, but drinks seriously smooth. We can’t help but agree with the recently awarded accolade of 95 points.

Nose: new leather, blackberry

Palette: plum, blackberry, chocolate, black cherry

Pairs well with: This is a wine that can stand up to the heartiest of meals. Go with a good rare steak.

Available at: Goodland Wine Shop, Vons/Pavilions

Bull by the Horns Cabernet Sauvignon

Our second featured wine is another Paso Cabernet, this time from McPrice Myers. Their 2021 “Bull by the Horns” is part of their Hard Working Wines series, seeking to highlight affordable, high-quality wines from the central coast.

Nose: boysenberry, pepper, smoke

Palette: black currant, oak, plum

Pairs well with: chorizo jalapeño poppers or anything wrapped in bacon

Available at: Meritage Wine Market, most local grocery stores

• Summer Market @ Fox Wine: Shop over 20 locally owned businesses on Saturday, August 19th at 120 Santa Barbara Street (Waterline SB). Drink some Fox wine (or grab a beer from Topa Topa). Entry is free from 11AM - 4PM and there will be a DJ spinning vinyl.

• Wine and Fire: There are a host of events happening all over the Sta. Rita Hills this weekend for the Wine and Fire event series. From bubbles to barn parties, there’s plenty of options to choose from. Tickets start at $85 depending on what you plan on attending.

• Firestone Concert Series: The friday summer concert series at Firestone continues this Friday, August 18th. Admission is free and you can buy wine onsite.

• Summerfess @ Fess Parker: Saturday, August 19th Fess Parker is celebrating their founder with a full day celebration including a special tasting and movie on the lawn. Tasting tickets are $80, while movie tickets are $20.

• Wine tasting with Kleemeir Wines: Do you like Storm wines? Then you may be interested in Kleemeir wines. Storm’s assistant winemaker, Axel, is hosting a winemaker tasting of his personal label at Meritage Wine Market in downtown Santa Barbara on August 19th from 2-4PM. Admission is free.

• Winemaker dinner with Chateau St. Jean: Dine at The Blackbird in downtown Santa Barbara with Chateau St. Jean winemaker, Niki Williams. The event is Thursday, August 17th from 6-8:30PM and tickets are $150 for the dinner and pairing.

Cheers!

Issue #13