I had moonshine for the first time in, I believe, 2002. It was homemade stuff– a mason jar, peaches– I don’t remember a whole lot of the night. I was aware that White Lightning and other moonshine-type products were available, but until I walked into breakfast at Tales of the Cocktail a couple of weeks ago, my prior experience kept me from trying it.

I was immediately smitten with Catdaddy. It’s a “moonshine”– well, technically, because it’s legal, it’s not really moonshine– but the recipe is from old moonshiners in the Carolinas.   Legal moonshine has come to mean unaged whiskey, which is exactly what Catdaddy and its sister product, Midnight Moon are.

An aside: did you know that NASCAR started out as a race between moonshiners?  Neither did I.  Junior Johnson, a star of NASCAR in the 50s and 60s (and one of The Boyfriend’s childhood heroes), was originally a moonshiner.  The recipe for Catdaddy, as well as Midnight Moon, are his, and we met him at breakfast at Tales.   You see, moonshine runners made great NASCAR drivers, since I suppose they drove like bats out of hell and were used to navigating obstacles in the mountains, so a circular track was a piece of cake.  He’s now a part owner of Piedmont Distillers, who now makes his moonshine in small batches.

Catdaddy is just so interesting, flavor-wise.  It’s made from an “apple pie moonshine” recipe, so it has flavors of vanilla, cinnamon, clove, ginger and a hint of apple.  It’s incredible mixed in coffee with some cream, and there’s a recipe on their website for Catdaddy in hot chocolate.

Catdaddy itself, tasted neat, is just a bit sweet, with some prominent clove and cinnamon notes.  You don’t smell too much alcohol in the nose, but you do get a pretty strong vanilla extract scent.  The finish isn’t harsh, but soft.  It’s only 80 proof– much lower alcohol than many aged whiskeys (Maker’s Mark, for example, is 90).

When shaking this up in a cocktail, I wanted to go a different route from what the press folks suggested– many of the drinks on Piedmont’s site are really modern, with inclusions of Pama liqueur and sour apple schnapps (though I imagine substituting Catdaddy for vodka in an Appletini might make me like that drink again).   I was playing around with some Maker’s Mark and Maker’s Mark 46 for another post and thought– hey, Catdaddy is unaged whiskey.  I’ll bet  it would make a killer Whiskey sour.

I didn’t add an egg white– the way that sours have classically been prepared, and why the bar lemon you might get at your local bar has something of syrupy quality– but I did come up with a couple of killer drinks.

The Sweet Kitty

2 oz Catdaddy Moonshine

3/4 oz Simple Syrup

1 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker, and strain into a glass.

This is a beautiful drink, if I do say so myself– a little sweet, with hints of soft vanilla (not the harsh notes of tasting it straight), with just a bit of sour and a little spice.

As I was testing The Sweet Kitty, a couple of the drink-testers mentioned that maybe it was a bit too sweet, and wondered what it would be like with just a bit less sugar.  Change those proportions slightly, and the drink is entirely different.

The Sour Kitty

2 oz Catdaddy Moonshine

1/2 oz Simple Syrup

3/4 oz lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Wow!  With just a little less sugar, you get a much cleaner cocktail that is very vanilla-forward.  It’s refreshing and very sippable.

By the end of all four of us trying this cocktail, we couldn’t decide which one was better, thus both made it to publication.  So you have the Sweet Kitty and the Sour Kitty, two booze me, schmooze me originals!

Catdaddy is available nationwide for about $20 for a 750 ml bottle.

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