Best Restaurants 2009: The Drinking Age

Accelerating this process is the state’s 2008 craft-distillery law, which allows eligible distillers to hand out tasting samples and sell as many as 2 liters of their spirits per person, per day, directly from the distillery. “One of the things that have moved people about Washington wines is they can go visit a winery,” says Jeffrey Shilling, founder of Odyssey Spirits. “The craft-distillery designation gives us that opportunity to give people an experience of spirits, which you don’t get from a visit to a liquor store.”

To qualify for the “craft distiller” designation (as Dry Fly, Ellensburg Distillery and Dynamic Alambic do), distillers must produce less than 20,000 gallons of liquor annually, as well as use at least 51 percent Washington-grown produce for their raw ingredients, a move meant to boost the fortunes of the state’s farmers and one that helped create political momentum for passage of the new law. As an incentive to encourage new distillers to pursue the craft designation, the state will charge eligible distillers as little as $100 a year for a license, in contrast to the $2,000 annual licensing fee charged to standard distillers.

But some local distillers are less enthused with the new law’s emphasis on using Washington ingredients. Pacific Distillery founder Marc Bernhard opted out of the craft-distiller designation, a step that makes it more challenging for him to sell his spirits, but enables him to make his gin using botanicals such as Italian juniper berries and Moroccan coriander, which he says far surpass in quality what he’d find from local growers. (Bernhard also uses a neutral grain spirit produced out of state, another impediment to the craft designation.) Likewise, Gwydion Stone, the Seattle-based creator of Absinthe Marteau, sources some of his botanicals from close to home, but also uses ingredients from around the world, such as aniseed from Spain, which is macerated and distilled in a neutral spirit made from Oregon Pinot Noir grapes. “The current distillery laws just don’t permit me to do what I want to do with Marteau,” says Stone, who is distilling his absinthe at House Spirits Distillery in Portland, where he is considered a craft distiller. “No one in Washington produces what I need right now.”

Local bartenders have been quick to embrace local spirits, which are priced along the same lines as other premium boutique booze in Washington state liquor stores: a bottle of Voyager Gin, for example, retails for $29; Dry Fly’s gin and vodka sell for $32; and a bottle of Stone’s Absinthe Marteau costs $79.95, whereas Bernhard’s Absinthe Pacifique goes for around $65, not unusual prices for a typically expensive style of spirit. At Liberty on Capitol Hill and at Vessel downtown, customers can order a Voyager martini; Marteau is being mixed into Sazeracs and other cocktails at Zig Zag Café, Rob Roy and other craft-cocktail bars in the region; and Dry Fly’s bright-red fishing-lure icon is a fixture on many bars around town. If the flood of Washington liquor continues to rise, local drinkers will have plenty of reasons to raise a glass.


Absinthe Marteau
House Spirits Distillery
2025 SE Seventh Ave., Portland
503-235-3174; absinthemarteau.com
 
Dry Fly Distilling
1003 E Trent, # 200, Spokane
509-489-2112; dryflydistilling.com
Insider Tip:  Visitors are welcome to taste and purchase Dry Fly spirits at the distillery

Dynamic Alambic Artisan Distillers
20140 Road 24 SW, Suite B, Mattawa
425.440.9671; dynamicalambic.com
Insider Tip:  Distillery tours available by appointment, contact info@DynamicAlambic.com
 
The Ellensberg Distillery
1000 North Prospect St., Suite 3, Ellensburg
509.398.3221; TheEllensburgDistillery.com
Insider Tip: Distillery tours available by appointment, contact info@TheEllensburgDistillery.com.  Spirits available on site and in liquor stores May 1.

Odyssey Spirits
odysseyspirits.com
 
Pacific Distillery
18808 142nd Ave. NE, #4B, Woodinville
425.350.9061; pacificdistillery.com

Stone Distillery
stonedistillery.com
 

Additional reporting by Jeannie Curry