The New Seltzer of Summer

The lime seltzer, crafted by Allegheny Distilling

If we’ve learned anything in the past few years, it’s that hard seltzers aren’t going anywhere.

The market for these canned, spiked bubbles hasn’t stopped growing since catching fire in 2019; White Claw even outsold “nearly all craft beer brands” that year. They've caught on with big brands – Bud Light, PBR, Smirnoff – and small, local producers – Grist House Craft Brewery, East End Brewing Company, Eleventh Hour Brewing – alike, each creating a version of their own.

Tim Russell of Maggie’s Farm Rum and Allegheny Distilling is the latest to join the crew of seltzer-makers with Personal Day, a vodka-based hard seltzer that comes in four flavors: lemon, lime, grapefruit, and pineapple.

Russell's idea for Personal Day came from Pennsylvania’s initial quarantine when the state closed liquor stores.

“We had actually been bought out of nearly all of our inventory that wasn’t aging in barrels," he explains. To keep the Maggie's Farm production running, Russell purchased some industrial-produced Virgin Islands rum that they sold under the brand name Forbes.

But when state stores reopened and things slowed down, Russell was left with an excess of the mass-produced rum. With no desire to continue the Forbes brand, he had the idea to re-distill it, bumping the quality up to that of vodka.

“A lot of people don't realize that vodka can be made from almost any fermentable source, including corn, rye, grapes, sugarcane, etc.,” Russell explains. “The main quality of vodka is its purity at distillation, which lends to a clean character, almost completely without flavor and aroma.”

“Though plenty of craft distillers make their vodka from scratch with column stills, it's not always economic to do so,” he continues. “Many will just redistill purchased industrial vodka to improve the quality and make it their own. In our case, where we produce a heavier rum from scratch, we don't have the type of stills that can reach required vodka purity levels.” (Legally, in the U.S., vodka has to be distilled to 95% pure alcohol.)

However, Russell and his team were capable of distilling the light rum – already at 94.5% purity – to vodka range. “This creates a clean, almost flavorless, and odorless vodka that's perfect for something like a hard seltzer,” he explains.

All of the seltzers are crafted with real fruit, which Russell said was the “hardest step” of the process.

“Most brands are using flavor extracts,” he explains. “One thing we didn't want to compromise on with the Personal Day brand was the use of quality ingredients.”

“We've done months of research and design to come up with shelf-stable seltzer while using actual fresh juices, no concentrates or flavor extracts,” he continues. “Fresh juice is prone to oxidation and spoilage, but with certain filtration techniques, we were able to remove these volatile components, including pulp, pectin, sugars, and acids in the citrus.”

This technique results in seltzers with the essence of real fruit and a crisp dry finish, clear from the first sip. The grapefruit gives a mild tang of fruit on each taste; pineapple tastes as if fresh juice is dumped into the can right before cracking it; the lime and lemon burst with zings of citrus.

Personal Day seltzers, packaged in 12-ounce cans, are sold in four-packs for $9.99 and will be available at Allegheny Distilling outlets in late April. In May, Russell plans for the seltzers to be available in about 25 Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores in the Pittsburgh area.