Fighting the good fight against mass sameness everywhere, St. George Spirits in Alameda, California, is a local, independent distillery with a view of San Francisco, that started in 1982 making eau de vie (a fruit brandy), and now produces lovingly hand-crafted spirits of all sorts. “Our distillery is a kitchen of sorts and our spirits are made from the most extraordinary fruit, vegetables, herbs, grasses, and grains that we can find,” says master distiller/lab-master Lance Winters. “Our goal is to maximize flavor and aroma, not profitability.” Absinthe, brandies, gin, liqueurs, single-malt whiskey, rhum agricole, the menu of spirits that travels from lab to copper pot still is growing, from one experiment to another. A single-cask bottling of a single malt is coming up, and an organic corn rye whiskey is on its way. One could say, artisanal, defined. St. George Spirits are available online.