If you happen to find yourself at the corner of North Territorial and Stofer Rd. between Dexter and Chelsea, you are either lost or looking for quality vodka. When I found myself here, it was for the latter, and Jon from Ugly Dog was nice enough to give my wife JoAnn and I a tour.
You may have heard of Ugly Dog spirits at one of the nearly 1200 distributors in the Great lakes area, from their unique bacon flavored vodka, or their appearance on Under the Radar. You might also be wondering where the name came from. One of the first people we met when arriving at the location was Ruger, the mascot and namesake of Ugly Dog. There was a bit of disagreement about whether he was actually an ‘ugly dog’, but he was very photogenic!
Their brewing and bottling process takes place entirely on site at their chelsea location. They use michigan sourced grains and most of the equipment was built by Jon himself as their operation matured over since opening in 2009.
After getting a feel for how they make their vodka (and gin!) the next logical step was to give it a try.
- Whipped Cream: Surprisingly one of my favorites, had a great vanilla cream soda taste and was very smooth.
- Raspberry: Probably my second favorite. A good raspberry scent without an overpowering raspberry flavor.
- Plain vodka: Since this was the unflavored one, I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, it was smooth and went down easy. Definitely the kind of vodka you could drink on the rocks.
- Black Cherry: The flavor was soft and subtle, and honestly was overshadowed by the raspberry. If I had tried them in reverse order I might have had a different opinion.
- Gin: I’ve been drinking quite a bit of gin over the last few months, so I was anxious to get a taste of Ugly Dog’s version. It leaned toward the cucumber flavor as opposed to pine and came off as crisp and smooth.
- Bacon: Last but not least, Ugly Dog gets a unique flavor for this vodka, ensuring that no one else makes anything like it. By itself it comes off as smoky and smooth, conveying more of a bacon smell than a taste.
However, as they recommend, it works best as a bloody mary (which I happened to be drinking right now), and works even better with the bloody mary mix they offered at the store.
All of their flavors were available for purchase just in front of their distillery, all for great prices based on the quality you get (you can see prices of $19.97 at the time of the photo).
I had a great experience with my visit, and not only am I happy to support a local Michigan distillery, but we are all lucky enough for them to provide an excellent product as well.
