Desert Diamond Distillery

Boy, was it a Windy Wednesday! Fortunately our trip to Kingman, AZ was short, only about 80 miles. Bob has also been battling a cold and was not feeling too well, so it was a good thing that our next stop was not too far away. We took our time getting there, stopping first at Walmart for a little shopping and lunch in the RV, then a quick refueling to top off the tank. Our diesel tank holds 100 gallons and we like to top it off when we get down below half full.

We arrived in Kingman at the Desert Diamond Distillery about 2:15 in the afternoon, and met our hosts. DDD is a host member of the Harvest Hosts organization, and this is our first experience making use of our membership.  It actually was our very first time boondocking, so we weren't sure how deprived we would feel, without any hookups. Turns out we needn't have worried because we were quite comfortable.
We had the whole parking lot to ourselves, and as soon as we got our slides out we went inside for a tour.

It was fascinating! Alcohol, we learned, starts with sugar in some form (in this case, molasses.)  It is heated with water, grain, and yeast, in these tanks. The mixture must be kept warm but below 115 degrees, for the yeast to grow and ferment, producing alcohol.

Next it goes into a still.  The mixture is heated to above 170 and below 212 degrees, to distill the water and the alcohol.  The alcohol is distilled 4 times for rum, 17 times for vodka.  This still  (below) was specially made in Germany and can make rum, whisky, or vodka. 

DDD makes mostly rum and vodka. 

After distillation the vodka is ready to drink but the rum goes into these barrels for aging.

I'm simplifying the process, but that is basically how it is done. It was really interesting!  We had a tasting afterwards, and purchased a bottle of Agave Spiced Rum and some mustard pretzels to go with it. Yummy! 

The wind was really blowing all night so we "turtled-up" and brought in one of our slides for the night. This helped us keep warm, along with our furnace (which hardly even needed to turn on, despite it being 37 degrees.)

We enjoyed our first night as guests of Harvest Hosts and I'm sure we will use our membership again soon.