Beaver Pond Distillery mastering ‘water of life’ in Petersham

PETERSHAM – My phone flashed with life almost as soon as the car lurched off the dirt road leading out of pine-dense woods a mile from the Quabbin Reservoir.

I could now apologize to my wife for leaving several messages unanswered, for I had been out of cell service, tasting brandy.

Earlier, inside a modified goat barn hard by a placid pond, I was learning about eau de vie — unaged brandy distilled from fruit — or the “water of life.”

I tried multiple versions of eau de vie alongside the distiller, Jerry Friedman, founder of Beaver Pond Distillery, the only in the state focusing on the after-dinner elixir.

A classical station played in the barn, Friedman’s laboratory, his desk topped with slightly filled glass bottles he marked with the fruit and alcohol volume of the sample. Ripening nearby were Seckel pears from Ragged Hill Orchard in West Brookfield — one of the local farms he sources for fruit — packed into about 25 cardboard boxes.

In one corner of the barn, sun streamed through a pair of windows, casting shadows on over a dozen wooden barrels, set on their side on the floor or stacked three high on scaffolding. Another room held Friedman’s 12-foot still, handmade in Germany, which he described as resembling “R2-D2 meets Captain Nemo.”

Friedman looked like a farmer, not a scientist, sporting a gray driving cap and layered on this chilly afternoon in a long-sleeve shirt, sweater and well-worn Sherpa-lined vest. He pulled from somewhere a box with several opened bottles of his spirits, bearing labels, he told me, inspired by Constructivism art.

“This one’s more Bolshevik,” he said of a taller, thinner bottle of apple brandy.

He picked up a bottle of his slivovitz, an Eastern European plum brandy that his grandparents would drink during Passover, and the marathon tasting began.

Each sip demonstrated how eau de vie captures the essence of its selected fruit, none more so than pear, which smelled and tasted not of an 80-proof spirit but as if Friedman had just plucked from an orchard one perfectly ripened, then sliced through the yellow skin.

“That’s a very traditional one,” he told me. “And that’s the one that spurred my whole adventure.”

Smitten with eau de vie

Friedman discovered eau de vie in his 20s while backpacking through Europe, his first sip coming in a small village in the French Pyrenees at a distillery offering free tastings. And he wouldn’t forget its lively taste, seeking out different styles of it during future trips around the U.S. and abroad.

Eau de vie remained his preferred spirit through life’s adventures, even as he never imagined himself making it one day from his own distillery.

But after a legal career spanning over 30 years, many of them as a partner at one of the country’s most prominent firms for immigration law, Friedman had had enough of lawyering.

He did not desire complete retirement, wanting to stay busy somehow. He made beer, then wine, then started to experiment with distilling and returned to his love of eau de vie.

I asked Friedman whether he went through the slog of opening Beaver Pond Distillery in 2017, in many ways, to legitimize his hobby as an amateur distiller, rather than a lawyer turned moonshiner. He didn’t disagree with my observation, telling me he soon learned brandy, unlike bourbon, is a hard sell.

“If you drink whiskey, there’s always room on your shelf for another bottle,” he told me. “But brandy — you buy it at Christmas, you give it as a gift, and it lives in their liquor cabinet for the rest of their lives.”

Friedman thought people would feed off his passion for eau de vie, and the market would grow as smitten. Most of his time outside the distillery has been spent educating people about eau de vie.

“I don’t think people understand what brandy is at all,” he said. “People think it’s what their grandmother drank or what you drank in college, at least in my day: blackberry brandy or something artificially flavored.”

Making the water of life

Dating back to the 17th century, eau de vie comes from the fermentation of fruit pulp, aided by a little commercial wine yeast. Following fermentation, he shovels the mash into his copper still, in which, powered by steam, its vapors cycle through the machine to purify.

Every batch represents another experiment for Friedman. The only rule he follows is to use local fruits whenever possible. “As a point of pride,” he said, “eau de vie should be local.”

History has seen several fruits selected for eau de vie. The brandy in your glass really depends on the country you drink it in, he said. Austrians love apricots. The French work a lot with cherries. Pear is universal.

Despite distilling very small batches, about 120 bottles, Friedman has managed to create over a dozen spirits over the last six years, including whiskey.

Not far from Friedman’s barn is Stone Cow Brewery and Beaver Pond’s new partner in its burgeoning whiskey lineup. Since Friedman doesn’t have the facility to mash grains, Stone Cow helps by brewing a wort for him that serves as the base for his whiskey.

He aims to age his whiskey for at least three years, with his latest release being a four-year-old whiskey aged three and a half years in a new American oak barrel and six months in a brandy barrel.

“Whiskey sells; it sells more than fruit spirits,” he told me.

Passion first, business second

Selling is Friedman's least favorite part of operating a distillery. “Some are born salespeople. I’m not,” he said.

Beaver Pond needs at least one sales rep, he said, along with an assistant distiller to take the next step in the market. Friedman schedules in-store tastings as much as he can, but lately he has found himself behind in the distillery, with one batch sitting in drums ready for bottling, and the pears, when they ripen, needing to get pulverized and fermented.

Dependent on fresh fruit, Friedman’s production slows to a crawl in the winter. However, that doesn’t mean he gets a vacation.

“The idea was I would work really hard through the end of the summer until winter, then I’d go skiing for the rest of the year,” he said. “That didn’t factor in that you have to sell it.”

Still, people discover his eau de vies and fancy them enough to make the trek, down the dirt road that cuts through the forest. One South Shore customer buys a prodigious amount of Beaver Pond’s pear eau de vie, empties them into his glass bottles that he grows pears in and gives them out as gifts around the holidays.

Beaver Pond doesn’t have a tasting room — the town wouldn’t permit one — but Friedman can sell directly from his barn. He simply requests customers make an appointment before they visit.

I suggest you do, if only to escape the stresses and pressures of your day for an afternoon of eau de vie.

To find stores selling Beaver Pond Distillery’s spirits and for cocktail recipes featuring eau de vie, head to beaverponddistillery.com.

Anyone interested in seeing the distillery should contact Friedman at jerry@beaverponddistillery.com to arrange a visit.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Beaver Pond Distillery creates eau de vie and spirits in Petersham