Top 100 Spirits 2022
Versions of a spirit called sorrel date back to the 1600s, when hibiscus flowers were first brought to the Caribbean from West Africa. This version is made with Moroccan hibiscus blended with Brazilian clove, Indonesian cassia, Nigerian ginger and Indonesian nutmeg. Jackie Summers, a native of Brooklyn, left a 25 year career in corporate America to pursue a dream to create a version of this 500-year old recipe, tapping into his own family history. His maternal grandparents were immigrants from Barbados who settled in Harlem, NY. His grandfather, a trained chef, taught his wife to cook who taught their daughter who passed on the family's steeped culinary knowledge, including a flare for spices, to her son Jack.
When Jack launched the micro-distillery JackFromBrooklyn in 2012, he was at the time, the only Black person in America with a license to make liquor. To date, he is the first known Black person to secure a liquor license, post-prohibition.