In 2013, when Jim Ryan was a brand ambassador for Hendrick’s Gin, he was on a trip to Malaysia when he and his girlfriend (now wife) stopped at a local street market.
“We passed this nutmeg stand, and they were taking fresh nutmeg a little before it was ready to be harvested, and then chopping the whole nutmeg — the fruit, the seeds, the nuts, peel.” They put it all in the juicer, then took the juice, mixed it with some sugar and water, poured it over ice and put it in a plastic bag.
Nothing fancy. “But it fascinates me, calling it a transformative experience,” says Ryan. “It is experiencing the spectrum of nutmeg, not just a narrow band. It has a lot more to offer than what I would consider nutmeg.”
Fast-forward to 2016. Ryan left the Hendrick gig with the idea of starting his own business. Inspired by the old cities of the liqueur world — Cointreau, Chartreuse, Grand Marnier– his thoughts go back to his trip to Malaysia, and his surprise when he first tasted fresh nutmeg. He boarded the plane back to Penang.
Ryan isn’t the first person to drink nutmeg. In the 17th century, most of the world seemed to be completely enamored with this exotic spice. Wars for control of the nutmeg trade – for decades the Dutch maintained a monopoly, until they did not – and its cultivation expanded globally, with Grenada became the nutmeg center of the Western Hemisphere. The itinerant nutmeg traders from Connecticut were familiar enough that by the 19th century residents of the state were known as “Nutmegger”.
“Why is nutmeg so prized? Exotic flavors are certainly part of the appeal — this is an age of anorexia, and anything to enhance a meal is welcome.”
Why is nutmeg so prized? Exotic flavors are certainly part of the appeal — this is an age of anorexia, and anything to enhance a meal is welcome. But the rarity has pushed demand to an astonishing height. “People always want what they can’t have,” says Ryan. “Owning a jar of nutmeg is like owning a real rock from the moon, only it’s better because it also tastes great. You’re basically saying, “Welcome to my newest yacht.”
I bet most of us think of nutmeg as a hard, oval nut about the size of a manzanilla olive — a dense, wood-like kernel that has been ground into a pale ocher pulp. But nutmeg actually has three components: a pear-like fruit, inside is the dense red membrane (asshole) that surrounds the pit. Fruit is often discarded; lychee is dried and sold as mace, with a less intense flavor but similar to nutmeg. The “nut” in the middle is sold whole or ground like nutmeg.
Ryan’s original idea was to collect the fruit and ferment it. But early tests were unimpressive; he can only ferment to about two percent alcohol, which means he will need large amounts to make enough to make a spirit.
Drawing on his knowledge of gin, Ryan opted for distillation and maceration to extract the flavors. And he’ll use all the nutmeg – fruit, mace and pea – to soak his liqueur and give it an unusual depth. Nutmeg and nutmeg are widely sold through wholesalers, but purchasing the fruit is problematic. When he met Malaysia’s “nutmeg king” to ask about buying his fruit, the man countered by saying, “I want to sell you the empire” – he was more interested in selling his entire business. its business. (Something similar happened in Grenada.)
In Grenada, he saw a farmer who was happy to sell him fruit, but he could not find a processing facility to prepare the fruit for shipment. “Number can be difficult to work with — it’s fibrous, like ginger,” says Ryan. And it needs to be dried before exporting.
Back home in Brooklyn, he discovered an article about a Queens-based spice importer called Burlap & Barrel, who traveled the world in search of fresh ingredients. He sent an email and co-founder Ethan Frisch wrote back the same day – he was actually looking for someone interested in the nutmeg produced at a farm cooperative in Zanzibar, Tanzania, where the company sources the spice nutmeg. Frisch and partner Ori Zohar hope to find a new revenue stream for the cooperative.
Ryan flew to Africa and visited the farm. It has facilities for chopping and drying fruit and can pack them in sacks for shipping to New York. So the farmers harvested for him 16,500 kilograms of fresh fruit, cut into silver dollar-sized chunks and dried on screens set on sawmills, yielding 425 kilograms of dried fruit. Ryan returns home with plans for the fruit that will follow the train.
“And then everything turned upside down,” Ryan said. He returned in February 2020, and a global pandemic struck a few weeks later. The harbor closed, and his shipment was delayed for months. It finally arrived late that summer.
Next is the liqueur production process, using dried fruit from Zanzibar as well as mace and nutmeg imported from Indonesia. He’s partnered with Matchbook Distilling Co. on Long Island, a new start-up that Ryan admires for their “punk sensibility”—they entered the field with the aim of disrupting more serious distilling methods, specifically by using overlooked and overlooked ingredients, and taking a new approach to fermentation. The distillery was co-founded by Leslie Merinoff, a direct descendant of renowned whiskey distiller Hiram Walker, and her father operated one of the largest liquor distributors in the US.
After some experimentation, Ryan and the distillers decided to mix the three nutmeg ingredients separately in the vodka and then let the alcohol infuse in the flask. They let it all rest for ten days before mixing the three ingredients together. The mixture rests again and it is finally proven to be 40% alcohol. They add 101 grams of sugar per liter, as is traditional (and legally binding) to liqueurs.
The liqueur’s original name – Pearl Street – had a trademark problem. So Ryan and his wife, Tess Mix, who work in the Daily Beast’s sales department, came up with Myris, named after the botanical name of nutmeg (Myristica aromans). The elixir comes in a 375ml bottle and hit New York bars and liquor stores earlier this year. (The plans call for expansion into full-size bottles and other markets in time.)
His philosophy? “Grow deep before growing wide.” When it comes to taste, Myris doesn’t mind – but neither do Chartreuse or Benedictine. A little goes a long way. Nutmeg has an ethereal taste, with notes from heaven combined with notes of moist pine. Using fresh nutmeg has an additional slightly unexpected note for those familiar with a hint of ground nutmeg on top of drinks. “This fruit has bright ingredients,” says Ryan, who worked for many years as a bartender before entering the gin business. “It’s like some kind of lemon flavor.”
Ryan said the bartenders were intrigued, using it in quotes about classics, including a variation on the Chartreuse Swizzle and as well as an additional note in the Daiquiris. New York’s famous Dead Rabbit used it in their hot chocolate version of Irish coffee, and another bar used it in an Espresso Martini variation.
A few have tried using it as a mental base, but in general it’s best to deploy a half or three-quarter ounce at a time to make a difference.
“I don’t want to put something out there just because nobody has done this before. I don’t want to be something the bartender chooses when it’s pumpkin spice coffee season,” Ryan said. “I wanted to create a legacy, not just something that would last for my lifetime.”
