SPIRIT of PLACE : When Stephen McCarthy’s neighbor was getting $14 a ton for pears that cost $30 a ton to pick, he began cutting down his orchards. McCarthy took a different course: He decided to make pear brandy.

Fermenting fruit exudes a moist, over-sweet, buoyant aroma and fills the small industrial building. The time is 9:30 on a chilly morning in an up-and-coming Portland neighborhood. Stephen McCarthy is at a table, swirling up vapors from clear brandy in his glass. He takes a sniff and nods. Yes, once again he has distilled from the pear its fiery essence.

He talks: About saving the family farm, innovation in food, preserving the environment, pride, the growth-mania of American business, the future of the Pacific Northwest and, of course, brandies.

The American economy and the American way of life may be headed in several directions at once these days. McCarthy is tugging things his way, learning as he goes, and teaching too.

Not long ago, it cost the McCarthy family twice as much to pick the family orchards as the fruit would bring at market. Now, after considerable investment, after the transoceanic mastery of an old art, and all the while bucking today’s trend away from high-alcohol spirits, McCarthy can proudly hold up a 750-milliliter bottle of the ice-water-clear distillates of his family pears--a bottle worth as much today as a ton of pears used to be on the tree.

McCarthy is one of the preeminent distillers of fruit brandies in the United States. Actually, he is one of the very few such distillers in the country. But that should not diminish his work. Fine fruit brandies, like single-malt scotches and microbrewery beers, can reach uncommon heights.

“It’s as good as any I’ve tasted--some of it is better than anything the Europeans are producing, and that’s unusual, says an enthusiastic Steve Wallace, proprietor of Wally’s in Los Angeles and a nationally recognized expert on wine and alcoholic beverages. “And he’s far ahead of anybody domestically. I’ve been amazed by the quality, and it’s half the price of what you get from Europe.

Europeans have given Americans a language to help us raise our appreciation of these liquors: Made from the Bartlett pear (which is known as the Williams pear in France), the brandy is called Eau-de-Vie de Poire Williams. Italian-style grappa is made from the pressed grape skins, or pomace, left over from making wine. Cherries give Kirschwasser. Apples . . . well, apples produce plain apple brandy, which, unlike the others, is not perfectly clear but carries the residual tint of oaken aging barrels.

These fragrant after-dinner drinks are less complex than the brandy distillates of wine, the Cognacs and Armagnacs. They are appealing for their purity, their pungency and, for many Americans, their outright surprise.

“Yes, surprise, that’s how to put it, McCarthy says agreeably.

Take a sniff. Indeed, the spirit of the pear seems to live in these spirits.

But McCarthy is something more than a distiller.

He is one of a vigorous breed of Americans, a breed of particular renown here in the Pacific Northwest, who combine modern technology, old-fashioned ideas of quality, the best of regional ingredients and far-off exotic formulas into new or resurgent food and beverage businesses of distinction. These are endeavors that, at the same time, open fresh vistas of appreciation for consumers and provide new competitiveness for America.

High-volume, low-price, fill-in-the-blank-mart rah-rah may get most of the attention, and surely most of the dollars, in domestic business these days. But McCarthy’s Clear Creek Distillery typifies ingenuity and creativity of a different sort.

Lift America’s tastes and you need not bother with that new mousetrap.

For instance, wine and bourbon and honey and maple syrup and smoked hams--all of these bear the joint label “superb quality and “produced in America. Some of them have been specialty industries for generations, others more recent.

Lately the trend has been accelerating: sparkling wine, handmade beer, roast coffee, domestic caviar, fresh bagels. Now you can add to these the crystalline brandies of St. George Spirits of Emeryville, Calif., and Clear Creek Distillery of Portland.

How do these things begin?

Not, it seems, out of safe conformity, but rather from taste bud to taste bud, from hobby to vocation to passion. A sense of rage apparently doesn’t hurt either.

Less than a decade ago, McCarthy was a more conventional American businessman, selling holsters and shooting accessories, a business he inherited from his father.

“I’d be traveling in Germany, and I’d meet a customer in the Black Forest and we’d end up drinking some of this incredible Eau-de-Vie Poire Williams. I learned that the Williams pear is the same as our Bartlett. And back home at my family orchard in the Hood River Valley, we grew Bartletts and couldn’t sell them for enough to pay to pick them, McCarthy says.

“My brother was busting his back. The co-ops would pay $14 a ton and it cost $30 to pick them. So we’d leave the fruit on the trees. I remember I saw a man down the road who was so proud and so mad he cut down his orchard with the fruit still on the trees.

McCarthy mutters profanities about the injustice of it. If farmers couldn’t farm, then they would sell out to developers, and then the foothills at the base of the Mt. Hood volcano east of Portland would be forever changed--lawns and skateboards and blacktop instead of birds and orchards and tilled soil that feels rich to the hand.

At the same time, Oregon politicians were off courting Japanese electronics assembly plants with the promise of cut-rate real estate on which to build.

The picture made him seethe.

And everywhere he looked, he seemed to find the same thing: Coastal spruce trees of North America cut and ground up into pulp and shipped to Japan, where the fiber is processed into rayon and fabricated into clothing that is sold at the K mart down the street where an orchard once grew.

McCarthy swirls his glass more vigorously as he talks now.

He recalls how he decided to do something about it.

He had expanded his father’s business globally and made himself quite a lot of money. Distilling was just a hobby in the mid-1980s.

In 1987, that changed. He sold the shooting accessory enterprise for cash and gambled that his $14-a-ton family pears could be turned into $28-a-bottle brandy--thereby making him an environmental pioneer and giving him the pleasure of being a craftsman too.

Today, he is the wizard at the controls of two polished, 66-gallon German pot stills, quaint contraptions wrought of polished copper, brass and stainless steel. Perhaps it would be best to distill the brandy at the orchard. But that would be difficult for marketing purposes. So, pears and apples and other fruits are trucked 90 miles or so from the orchards to the distillery, which is only a short walk from McCarthy’s Portland home.

And “at that most perfect moment when the pears are exactly ripe, McCarthy crushes them.

Fermentation relies on natural sugar in the fruit and wine makers yeast.

“Nothing else is added. We get the pear as perfect as possible and then do as little as possible to degrade it, says McCarthy.

Distilling involves heating the fermented mash. Natural alcohols evaporate and condense at the top of the still and trickle down a spout. The first brandy contains the lightest alcohols with bitter, medicinal flavor. These “heads are discarded. The last of the brandy, the “tails, also is inferior and is discarded. One of the arts of distilling is selecting just the right middles, or “hearts, to save.

The still-strength brandy, about 130 proof, is then stored in five-gallon glass containers and allowed to age a year or so. Apple brandy goes into oak casks for up to four years. Later, McCarthy uses highly filtered Portland city water to bring the aged batches down to a uniform 80 proof, 40% alcohol. The brandy is then filtered some more to insure its clarity at any temperature. It is bottled and each label is affixed by hand.

McCarthy produces “a few thousand cases a year under his own label and others under private labels. A certain number of special bottles, some of them of cut glass, are placed on the branches of budding trees so a pear will grow inside each. The fruit-in-the-bottle is then harvested and filled with brandy for gift presentations.

None of it has been easy, of course.

Distilling is straightforward, but the life of an American distiller isn’t. All of the equipment is European, and expensive. Each of the stills, for example, costs about $50,000. The Europeans have generations of refined art behind their brandy, and they had a ready market of sophisticated and willing brandy drinkers.

McCarthy brought to the task some cash and determination, and he proved a quick study of the brandy-maker’s art.

Darrell Corti, an internationally recognized wine and spirits expert from Sacramento, says both McCarthy and St. George’s Jorg Rupf “today produce brandy of quality equal to and sometimes clearer and better distilled than Europeans.

Corti says McCarthy “may have an advantage with fruit quality. California doesn’t produce the best of everything, you know.

But making expensive brandy is one thing; selling it is an entirely different matter.

Not the least of McCarthy’s challenges has been this: How can you market something for which there is no market?

Corti describes additional difficulties: “One, producers here tend to get overwhelmed by ‘mass marketing.’ Two, in today’s climate a lot of people who used to drink spirits have switched to wine or stopped drinking . . . . Fine spirits are not so popular now.

So, McCarthy went to dinner.

“When I started, some little voice said, ‘See the chefs.’ ” So one by one, chefs watched this bearded Northwesterner barge in the door with his bottles of clear brandy and a request: Please taste this. The chefs would. And McCarthy began winning converts.

A typical American consumer first experiences these domestic brandies when a chef or maitre d’ offers a sample or a toast at the end of dinner. Something special, perhaps, for a special customer. “If somebody had seen this stuff on the shelf in the liquor store, they wouldn’t have noticed it. But when chef Louis, or Luigi, or whoever, serves it, that’s different, says McCarthy.

The chefs can count on pleasing diners with a surprise, and McCarthy then counts on diners to seek out the brandy to serve at home for guests. And thereby, as the MBA economists might say, demand is born.

Most entrepreneurs would have been daunted by such challenges.

And none of this accounts for the disappointments. McCarthy actually began his marketing push with apple brandy, apples being the signature fruit of the Northwest. But this proved harder to sell than eau de vie of pear because, as McCarthy was to discover, consumers mistook it for overpriced Applejack.

He has since had to age his apple brandy, formulated the same as French Calvados, up to four years in oak casks to increase consumer recognition of its high quality.

Even success comes with a pitfall. Like many, if not most, American businessmen, McCarthy found that selling his first case made him want to sell a hundred, then a thousand. He found himself racing around America promoting Clear Creek, then racing home to make it. “I wanted to corner the market on brandy, he said, still swirling his glass and inhaling the vapors.

It was only natural. But it wasn’t very satisfying, and it was eating deeply into his investment bankroll.

So, he backed away. New York and California remain his stalwart markets. But this environmentalist and board member of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund says he is weaning himself from the expand, expand, expand dogma of modern start-up businesses. He isn’t racing so hard to grow so fast these days.

“The results are very gratifying, he says and then pauses mid-swirl and smiles. “The guys I don’t like, I’m not selling to any more.

Oh, and a bonus may come with the strategy and hard work: “Hasn’t happened yet, but there is a reasonably good chance I’ll make a very modest profit this year.

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The best thing to do with fruit brandy is simply pour it into a glass and drink it. But fruit brandy also comes in handy in the kitchen. Here are three recipes that will make you happy you’ve got a bottle sitting on your shelf.

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This summer recipe is so simple that it’s difficult to believe how beautiful--and delicious--it is. You can use pear eau-de-vie or another type of fruit brandy. We had good success with Randall Grahm’s Ca’ del Solo Prunus, a fruit brandy made with apricots, cherries and plums. If you are counting calories, the recipe is almost equally delicious without the Creme Anglaise.

BAKED PEACHES 4 peaches, peeled 4 teaspoons butter 4 teaspoons brown sugar 1/4 cup pear eau-de-vie or fruit brandy of choice Dash cinnamon Creme Anglaise

Lay sheet of foil flat on work surface. Place 1 peach in middle and dot with 1 teaspoon butter, 1 teaspoon brown sugar, 1 tablespoon liqueur and dash cinnamon. Wrap in foil. Repeat with remaining peaches.

Bake at 350 degrees 30 minutes. Remove from oven and chill. Serve with Creme Anglaise. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving, with Creme Anglaise, contains about: 419 calories; 96 mg sodium; 216 mg cholesterol; 29 grams fat; 28 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams protein; 0.56 grams fiber.

Creme Anglaise 1/2 cup milk 1 cup whipping cream 1 egg 1 egg yolk 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Heat milk and 1/2 cup cream in saucepan until bubbles form on sides.

Mix egg, egg yolk (save egg white for another use) and sugar in medium bowl. When milk mixture is ready, pour some into eggs to temper, then pour eggs into remaining milk mixture. Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cool. Stir in vanilla.

Beat remaining 1/2 cup cream until stiff. Fold into cooled custard.

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This is a classic French recipe that calls for Calvados. It would be equally delicious with a good American apple brandy.

POULET SAUTE VALLE D’AUGE (Chicken With Calvados Cream) 6 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons oil 1 (2 1/2- to 3-pound) chicken, cut up Salt White pepper 1/3 cup Calvados or apple brandy 1/2 cup chicken stock 2 tablespoons finely chopped shallots 1/4 cup finely chopped celery 1 cup peeled, cored and coarsely chopped tart apples, such as Fuji 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled 2 egg yolks 1/2 cup whipping cream Watercress or parsley sprigs

Heat 4 tablespoons butter and oil in heavy 8- to 10-inch skillet and brown chicken. Pour off all but thin film of fat. Return browned chicken to skillet and season to taste with salt and white pepper.

Warm Calvados in small saucepan over low heat, ignite with match and pour over chicken, little at time, shaking skillet gently back and forth until flame dies. Add stock and, with wooden spoon, scrape up browned bits clinging to skillet. Set aside.

In separate small saucepan or skillet, melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter over moderate heat and add shallots, celery, apples and thyme, stirring occasionally with wooden spoon 10 minutes or until tender but not brown. Spread over chicken, return to high heat and bring stock to boil.

Cover skillet, reduce heat and simmer chicken, basting with pan juices every 7 to 8 minutes. After about 30 minutes, or when chicken is tender, remove from skillet and arrange pieces on large, heated oven-proof platter. Cover chicken loosely with foil and keep warm in 250-degree oven.

Strain contents of skillet through fine sieve set over small saucepan, pressing down hard on vegetables and apples with back of spoon to squeeze out all juices. Let sauce settle, then skim off as much of surface fat as possible. Boil sauce, stirring occasionally, over high heat 2 to 3 minutes, or until reduced to about 1/2 cup.

With wire whisk, blend egg yolks (save egg white for another use) and cream in bowl and gradually beat in all of hot sauce, 1 tablespoon at time. Pour back into saucepan and cook over moderately low heat 2 to 3 minutes, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens. Do not allow to boil or sauce will curdle. Season to taste with salt and white pepper.

To serve, coat each piece of chicken with sauce and decorate platter with bouquets of watercress. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about: 729 calories; 470 mg sodium; 332 mg cholesterol; 60 grams fat; 7 grams carbohydrates; 30 grams protein; 0.30 grams fiber.

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A few years ago there was a vogue for spaghetti sauces made with vodka. We’ve discovered that almost anything that calls for vodka is even better made with grappa. The grappa adds a slightly exotic touch to this very simple pasta sauce.

GRAPPA-TOMATO SAUCE 1/4 cup olive oil 1 clove garlic 2 leeks, white part only, cleaned and finely chopped 1 stalk celery, finely chopped 1 (28-ounce) can tomatoes, drained, juice reserved and chopped 3 tablespoons tomato paste 1/4 cup dry red wine 2 to 3 tablespoons grappa 1/2 cinnamon stick 2 bay leaves 1/2 teaspoon allspice Salt, pepper

Heat olive oil. Crush garlic into oil. Add leeks and celery, cooking over medium heat until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Add tomatoes, reserved juice, tomato paste, wine, grappa, cinnamon stick and bay leaves. Bring to boil, reduce to simmer and cook until quite thick. Add allspice and salt and pepper to taste. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about: 248 calories; 608 mg sodium; 0 mg cholesterol; 14 grams fat; 25 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams protein; 1.98 grams fiber.