After a very circuitous route that sparked lively commuting conversation along the lines of, "Is this the Webster Tube?" and "So...this is the third stop light, why doesn't it look like we can veer left?" and "Maybe we should just follow that car, it seems to know where it's going," we finally arrived at St. George Spirits Distillery. Discerning barflies know it as the home of Hangar One, that fecund mecca of inspirationally infused vodkas. Why were we there? Why, to get our Qi on, of course!

Qi (pronounced "chee") is this hot, new, tea liquor from St. George Spirits that calls itself "the spirit of tea." Well, it's a spirit and it is definitely tea, but was it good? Let me put it to you thusly, when we walked into the Hangar One hangar for the launch party, it was so cold they had thoughtfully placed heat lamps around even-more-thoughtfully-placed sofas. However, when I sunk my body into a hot cup of craft-distilled Qi and Lapsang Souchong, I was warmed to the core. It was smoky and sweet with a definite kick that would go over well in the frozen tundra of my homestate. I liked it a lot, and I'm really surprised by that. I went over there thinking, "Well, I like tea. And I do like alcohol, but putting the two together sounds too much what little old ladies do with their sherry and tea in England." I'm happy, nay, ecstatic to be enlightened.

After making fairly short work of my tea and Qi, I sampled a few of the cold cocktails they had shaken up for this launch. These cocktails included such ingredients as lime, orange, whisky, mint, and ginger ale, but I determined that I really preferred to sip my Qi neat in a tiny sherry-sized glass. The smoke put me in mind of some delightfully peaty whiskies my husband and I had sampled on our Scottish Highland honeymoon five years ago, but where whisky can sometimes give off that unmistakable Band-Aid aroma, under all that intriguing smoke and clubby leather, Qi was touched only by vanilla and exotic fruits.

Qi 1 is definitely a winter tipple that cries out for roaring fires and ski-fatigued limbs, but I'm just praying they do a jasmine Qi somewhere down the line because I have a inkling that this tea-infused stuff is going to be a huge hit. You can currently find Qi at Citizen Cake, The Slanted Door, Range, Frisson, and Solstice in San Francisco and at A Côté in Oakland. However, if you wanna do like I do and seek out a bottle of your very own, look for the amber brew at Royal Liquors and Swirl on Castro in San Francisco, Caddell & Williams in Alameda, and Piedmont Grocery in Oakland.