Day Trip: Rachael Petach, C. Cassis

Rachael Petach spent 20 years in hospitality, from Chez Panisse while attending UC Berkeley, to hosting a pop-up restaurant in her Madrid apartment, to operations and programming director for the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn. But in 2017, a new obsession took hold. Petach began to experiment with blackcurrants (illegal to cultivate in the U.S. until 2003), hauling pounds of fruit up to her third-floor Brooklyn walk-up to craft small batches of liqueur. The result, founded in December 2020, is C. Cassis, a modern take on the classic liqueur, which Petach now makes in her Hudson Valley facility and tasting room.

5:30 a.m.

I quietly get out of bed for an hour to myself before anyone else wakes up. I make some black tea, do yoga, then take our dog, Ramona, on a run. She’s a 3-year-old Border Collie mix and we both need it. My son is 5 and he’ll sus out when I’m awake. I get his breakfast together and make him lunch for school. Then my husband and I chat about what’s happening with C. Cassis and his day. He’s a graphic designer for a creative studio, but also does all graphics and visual communications for the brand. At 8:30, I drive to Rhinebeck, about 25 minutes away. It would be the perfect time to make phone calls, but the cell service is terrible, so I listen to a podcast like Heavyweight.

9 a.m.

Since opening the tasting room last fall, I effectively erased my days off. I do some early emails then check the tanks. We have four 300-liter tanks and three 1,000-liter tanks, and each could be at any stage of the process. Fresh blackcurrants are harvested in July and fresh frozen because they’re such a niche crop. We macerate the cold fruit on a base of hybrid rosé wine and water—the temperature and alcohol delay primary fermentation for a DIY cold-soak method.

Once fermentation starts, we allow 12 to 20 hours before adding a neutral grain spirit made from organic New York corn to up the ABV and cut fermentation. It macerates on the skins for another five to seven days, then we press it and sweeten with raw, wild honey. It’s less syrupy than most liqueurs, with a more drinkable, aperitif quality. We add a botanical infusion to complement the blackcurrants, which have big, bright acidity and depth, and this herbaceous, almost savory quality. We add green cardamom, lemon verbena, lemon and orange rind, and bay leaf, and steep for about three weeks. After straining, the tank rests for another month before we bottle. 

11 a.m.

Morning calls and another cup of tea. I check in with our distribution partners, vendors, and collaborators. I also touch base with our culinary director, Katy Moore, on plans for the week.

Noon

We all have lunch together—myself, Katy, our operations manager, Kendra Lansing, and our production assistant and garden manager, Nicole Vascimini. Many of my own production tasks are math heavy, so I have detailed spreadsheets and calculations for proofing alcohol, ratios for batches, and new project R&D. I’m super excited about the culinary R&D that Katy is working on with byproducts of the liqueur to explore secondary and tertiary uses. Pressed fruit can be pickled, fermented, dehydrated, salt-cured or made into syrups, jams, and candies. We’ve made a salted currant compote and a tea blend that uses blackcurrant leaves, lemon verbena, and cardamom to play off the flavor profile of the liqueur. 

2 p.m.

Tank tasting with Kendra. We pull samples from tanks holding finished product, making decisions around timeline, process, and bottling. She ensures we have all items for production in-house—wax, corks, bottles, botanicals, etc. Meanwhile, Nicole tends to the garden where we grow everything from veggies for the kitchen to tiny mouse melons that get brined for garnishes.

4 p.m.

We try to wrap things by 4, which can be hard but feels really valuable to have time to live after work. I often head right home for childcare, but if we’re mixing drinks on-site, I have a strong affinity for the Spanish tradition of vermouth and soda from when I lived there. I’ll mix an ounce of Cassis and an ounce of dry vermouth, topped with seltzer and garnished with an orange and olive. We also do a Manhattan variation, subbing in the Cassis for the vermouth. We’re always ideating on fun ways to use what we grow and make, and the tasting room is the first place where you can see what we are excited about.