But then you see the sign, you hesitantly park, and on the other side of the door: Bam! It feels like you've stepped through a wormhole into a W in Midtown Manhattan-there's a big gray steel bar, beautiful lighting, a minimalist fireplace, a steampunk shiny still, high bar stools, an infinity of jars filled with exquisite elixirs and a holy-cow elite cocktail menu.ĭampfwerk Distillery Cocktail Room Cocktails You get there through residential streets not entirely believing your GPS. Louis Park, kind of west of 100, north of Trader Joe's, if you know what I mean, and unless you live in St. Dampfwerk is in the most nowhere bit of industrial St. She called in big gun package designers, commissioned a big steel bar, got the best barware, and as of this week threw open the Dampfwerk doors to all comers. And mom Mary Löffelholz is the Delta airlines executive who financed her family's dreams and made sure every little detail was nailed down. Daughter Bridgit Löffelholz is the social-media adept who trained at Esker Grove and Martina to learn the ins and outs of modern bartending, so she could assemble a team and create a bar worthy of the Dampfwerk products. If not, hear this: Dampfwerk Distillery opened their cocktail room this week, and it's gorgeous, and it's also the only place you can reliably try this wonderful pear brandy.ĭampfwerk is the all-family project of the Löffelholzes. Ralf is the German-born distiller who wanted to preserve the old-world traditions of the Northern-German, Scandinavia-adjacent part of the world from which he sprang. If you were lucky to get some of the Dampfwerk 2018 vintage, currently sold out of their internal inventory, but still on a few liquor store shelves, you're familiar with this exquisite and painstaking all-fruit brandy. The process takes months and results in a beverage that's like the essence of a pear turning to light-fragrant as a pear, vanishing as a flash-bulb. That required pear season, a delivery of tens of thousands of pounds of Oregon pears, and then washing, grinding, fermenting, and distilling the pear-mash. Making real fruit brandies is a process that takes a long time, which is why the Dampfwerk Distillery, open since the summer of 2016, didn't have their pear brandy first thing.

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