Lagunitas, Griffo Distillery unite for single-malt whiskey

In May 2020, Mike and Jenny Griffo put out a desperate plea: Did any wineries or breweries have any alcohol to spare?

It was the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the couple had transformed their Petaluma-based Griffo Distillery into a hand-sanitizer production facility to help fill a severe national shortage.

That’s when they got a call from Lagunitas Brewing Co.’s brewmaster, Jeremy Marshall.

“Lagunitas had just made a batch of The Waldos’ Special Ale, and they weren’t going to be able to sell the kegged portion because bars and restaurants weren’t open,” said Mike Griffo, co-owner and head distiller at Griffo Distillery. “Jeremy asked if we wanted it, and we definitely did.”

While the thought of turning a limited-edition IPA into hand sanitizer made him queasy, Marshall knew it was the right thing to do. Griffo Distillery is located right across the street from Lagunitas, and Marshall had developed a friendship with the Griffos over the years.

“Mike and Jenny are more than neighbors,” said Marshall, who’s worked at Lagunitas for nearly 20 years. “Our kids used to go to the same preschool. Sonoma County is small like that.”

Into the still

Produced annually since 2011, The Waldos’ Special Ale is a limited-release triple IPA the brewery calls “the dankest and hoppiest beer ever brewed by Lagunitas.”

Named after the Waldos, a group of friends from Marin County who coined the term “420” as a reference to marijuana, the bold, resinous beer typically clocks in at over 11% alcohol, with a bitter wallop of Citra and Mosaic hops.

On the day Mike Griffo and Marshall came together to turn Waldos’ into the hoppiest hand sanitizer around, inspiration struck.

“Jeremy and I were hanging out at the distillery, talking about how painful it was to turn the beer into sanitizer,” Griffo said. “Suddenly, we noticed these beautiful, delicious aromatics coming out of the still. That’s when we thought, hey, maybe we should make a new batch, distill it down and put it into barrel — a Waldos single-malt whiskey.”

R & D

While whiskey is essentially distilled beer, turning Waldos’ into a single-malt whiskey was not a straightforward process.

To meet compliance rules set by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, Lagunitas had to provide Griffo with unfermented wort (the liquid produced from malted barley steeped in hot water) minus the hops.

“Distilling Waldos’ for hand sanitizer was a great test run because we knew we wanted to preserve those great hop characters in the whiskey,” Griffo said. “Once Lagunitas gave us the mash, we added the Citra and Mosaic hops and allowed the mixture to macerate for 48 hours.”

After two distillation runs in Griffo’s copper-pot still, the whiskey was proofed down to 84 proof (42% alcohol by volume) before being aged in an American oak cask for three years.

“The distillation process was really clean and aromatic,” Griffo said. “But after we placed the whiskey into Seguin Moreau barrels for aging, magic happened. The finished whiskey is absolutely delicious.”

Now available for purchase at Griffo Distillery or through its website (for shipping in California), griffodistillery.com/pages/still-waldos, Still Waldos single-malt whiskey ($96) is in limited release and expected to sell out quickly. Griffo suggests allowing the newly bottled whiskey to rest for a few weeks before drinking to allow the flavors and aromatics to settle.

Marshall, who said he’d happily collaborate with Griffo again on a project, is a big fan of the finished Still Waldos whiskey, with its “perfect perceived sweetness and subtle barley and hop overtones.

“Perhaps my favorite part of Still Waldos is in the mouthfeel, which is somehow electrifying,” Marshall said. “It coats the mouth with a tingling sensation. That was a first for me!”

Griffo Distillery is located at 1320 Scott St., Suite A, Petaluma; 707-879-8755, griffodistillery.com

You can reach Staff Writer Sarah Doyle at 707-521-5478 or sarah.doyle@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @whiskymuse.