Seneca Falls, N.Y. — Mushroom Spirits is more than just an attention-grabbing name for a distillery.
In this case, there really is mushroom in that vodka.
It may be one-of-a-kind, especially in the Finger Lakes. But there’s an explanation: Joe and Wendy Rizzo have been growing and selling mushrooms for 15 years at Blue Oyster Cultivation, their farm near Ithaca.
In October 2020, they opened Mushroom Spirits Distillery south of Seneca Falls on the west side of Cayuga Lake.
“We weren’t really thinking about distilling when we started,” Joe Rizzo said. “It was the mushroom farm. That was the dream. It was going great. And we kind of just think about mushrooms all the time.
“.. Then it was like, ‘Let’s see what else we can do with the mushrooms.’ “
So the Rizzos came up with the idea of infusing vodka with actual mushrooms. They’ve used varieties they grow like Shiitake, Enoki, Blue Oyster and Hen of the Woods.
“Each mushroom is bringing something different to the spirit,” Joe Rizzo said.
The mushrooms are ground up and placed in a tank of finished vodka. The alcohol in the vodka helps extract the mushroom flavors and other compounds, Joe Rizzo said. Then it’s bottled.
Using alcohol to extract compounds from various natural sources is how many popular tinctures for health products are created, Rizzo said.
“That’s essentially what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re making fun cocktail tinctures, really.”
“I don’t like selling them as healthy vodka or anything,” he said, “but the truth is whatever is alcohol-soluble in the mushroom to some degrees is in the bottles.”
One thing Joe Rizzo has learned in the few years he’s been infusing mushrooms: The lower the alcohol level in the spirit, the more the mushroom flavor and quality comes through. So he’s infusing many vodkas that are about 35% alcohol (70 proof) or so.
Customers, the Rizzos say, are often “pleasantly surprised” by the taste.
“I think that’s a good description, that sometimes its a surprising flavor,” Joe Rizzo said. “.... Maybe what they’re tasting is different from what they were expecting.”
For now, mushroom is only infused into vodka, but Rizzo plans to experiment with other spirits in the future. He’s also preparing to distill most of his vodka himself in the small stillhouse behind the tasting room. In the first two years, the Rizzos purchased much of their vodka from a craft distiller near Albany.
Mushroom Spirits Distillery is at 4055 Route 89, about 8 miles south of Seneca Falls. It has a small tasting room, where in addition to the mushroom-infused vodka you can find other spirits, like bourbon and rye, that Rizzo bottles.
They also serve cocktails made with their mushroom vodka and other spirits in the tasting room. There’s a Mushroom Mule, for example, patterned after the popular Moscow Mule. There are takes on Manhattans, Negronis, Old Fashioneds and even Margaritas.
Each cocktail captures the essence of whichever mushroom spirit it uses, said Wendy Rizzo, who is usually the one behind the bar at the tasting room.
The Enoki mushrooms, in particular, have a bit of a botanical aroma and flavor that can make the vodka seem, almost, like gin. “So that’s good for classic gin cocktails,” she said.
Either on its own or in cocktails, however, the best-seller is the vodka infused with Hen of the Woods.
“It is a flavorful mushroom, and it’s maybe not a traditional mushroom taste, in the alcohol,” Joe Rizzo said. “Just kind of an uncommon flavor and I find that it’s maybe the most versatile of all of them because it fits into just any kind of classic cocktail. I think it just makes it more interesting, really.”
Wendy Rizzo is originally from New York City and Joe is from near the city in New Jersey. They met at one of the city’s farmers or “green” markets and later both ended up attending Louisiana State University. She studied law but then turned to a job in higher education back in New York, while Joe taught botany and other life sciences (where distillation was part of his lab and course work).
Joe Rizzo was familiar with the Finger Lakes, so when they decided to ditch their careers and grow mushrooms, they chose Ithaca as the location. Blue Oyster Cultivation is located at 1836 Slaterville Road (Route 79) south of Ithaca.
Their mutual bond over famers markets led them to sell most of the mushrooms they grow at places like the Ithaca Farmers Market and back in the green markets of New York City.
This season, the Rizzos plan to sell their spirits a little closer to home, including the Central New York Regional Market in Syracuse and the Rochester Public Market.
“We’re built for farmers markets,” Joe Rizzo said. “We met at a farmers market.”
The Rizzos are accustomed to getting strange looks about their business. That started, both say, long before they were doing mushroom spirits. Just running a mushroom farm was unusual.
“I know mushrooms are sort of having a moment now, but 14, 15 years ago, we go a lot of strange looks when we said were going to start a mushroom farm,” Joe Rizzo said.
So putting up that sign that says Mushroom Spirits Distillery is now triggering a similar reaction.
“I think people see the sign when they’re driving past and they’re kind of like, ‘What are they doing? Are they distilling mushrooms?’ " Wendy Rizzo said. “Is that just the name? And then they come in and say, ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ And we explain it to them. And they’re usually pleasantly surprised, I have to say.”
It’s actually pretty simple she says: “We do spirits that are infused with various types of mushrooms.”
About Crafting Drinks
Crafting Drinks is a series that explores some of the different or unusual methods used to produce wine, beer, spirts and ciders in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York.
· Crafting Drinks: Lucky Hare Brewing makes ‘a beer for every palate’ in the Finger Lakes
· Finger Lakes distillery takes creative approach to New York spirits (video)
· A Finger Lakes brewery becomes a champion of British ‘cask ale’ (video)
· Six Eighty Cellars takes a different approach to making wine (video)
Also: Norwhey Nordic Seltzer is Central NY’s newest craft alcohol beverage. It starts with milk
Don Cazentre writes about craft beer, wine, spirits and beverages for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
Katrina Tulloch shoots videos and writes life + culture stories for Syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Contact her: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 518-810-5022
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