Wild Moon Liqueurs

While the term “all natural” generally doesn’t hold a lot of merit in the food and beverage industry, Dubay’s liqueurs consist of just three truly natural ingredients – high-quality gluten-free, GMO-free vodka, pure organic vegetables and herbs (like Glastonbury-grown raw cucumbers and fresh rose petals), and organic raw cane sugar. Her background in landscaping and her love of nature clearly influences her new business. “For the last 22 years, I’ve been a sustainable landscape designer, so I’m taking the plants and flowers that I’ve been growing and preserving them in alcohol so that we can have a clean cocktail,” she adds. The line of Wild Moon Liqueurs currently consists of seven flavors: Cranberry, Lime, Cucumber, Birch, Rose, Lavender, and Chai Spice. “We’re not just using the flowers but the leaves and stems too, so I’m giving you all of these interesting, complex notes,” says Dubay.

Hartford Flavor Company is notably an infusionary, not a distillery, a distinction Dubay is quick to make. She and her team take sugar cane alcohol and infuse it with flavor from raw ingredients, like white birch bark. “The basic infusion process is extracting the essence out of the plant. What I’m trying to do at Hartford Flavor Company is capture the spirit of the plant in alcohol. If we’re just using droppers or essences from a lab, we are missing the spirit of the plant. The best thing you can do is use the whole plant, which captures the life force of the plant in the alcohol,” says Dubay. After weeks of steeping the plants, the liqueur gets passed through superfine micron filters to get the cleanest, clearest product possible, free from chemicals and chemical suspenders.

Fans of the brand can visit their capitol city headquarters for a full tour and tasting. The interior of Hartford Flavor Company is one part lab, one part fairytale tasting room. The lab has stainless steel tanks for infusing and shelves full of gallon-sized glass mason jars for Dubay’s own experimentation. Since she started, Dubay has created over 500 different infusions, though only seven have graduated to retail shelves. She’s currently testing flavors like roasted dandelion root, pumpkin spice, toasted coconut, horseradish, and sumac, and hopes to be able to offer them soon.

The tasting room, a.k.a. “Diana’s Lair,” was inspired by the Roman goddess, herself. “She was always hunting and I was hunting for something,” Dubay says. “She is the goddess of the moon, which is where the name Wild Moon comes from.” The company’s logo – an image of Diana aiming an arrow through a crescent moon, with a deer by her side – can be found throughout the bar area. Subtle gold hand stencil (made by Lelaneia) covers one wall and chandeliers of twinkling lights hang across the room. In addition to a variety of Wild Moon Liqueur flavors, guests can also buy Wild Moon-themed merchandise like candles, glasses, and shirts. The fantasy decor is an inspiring enough motif, but coupled with Dubay’s daily discoveries of flavor, it’s impossible to deny that there’s something magical happening on Arbor Street.

> Hartford Flavor Company: 30 Arbor St., Suite 107, Hartford; 860-338-1642

Dubay’s adventure started in her own kitchen, and with a little guidance and persistence, so can yours. To make infused liqueur at home, start with a very high quality, clean vodka (Dubay suggests Reyka). Use a high-quality water filter (such as a Brita) to remove any impurities. “The cleaner the base spirit, the cleaner the result,” says Dubay. Add the vodka to a clean glass jar of any size – “you never want your alcohol to touch plastic because alcohol is a corrosive. It will eat away at your plastic cup and put all of those chemicals in your body,” says Dubay – and add the herbs or florals of your choice. Dubay recommends violet or lilac for spring, but any fresh herb, hearty fruit, or vegetable will work. Cover the herb completely with the vodka and infuse for anywhere from one week to a month, depending on how delicate the plant is (i.e. the soft petals of lilacs and violets need far less time to infuse than a hearty herb, since the alcohol can easily penetrate a delicate flower).