Crafty!
Here’s a snapshot of the Washington craft distillery scene as it stands.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on May 14, 2010 at 03:12PM
As of last count, there are 14 approved craft distilleries in Washington State.
Three of those are in operation: Dry Fly in Spokane, Ellensburg Distillery in Ellensburg, and Soft Tail Spirits in Woodinville.
Of the 11 approved projects that have yet to open for business, three are in Seattle. Sound Spirits will likely be the first to open shop in Seattle. Other distillers hope to welcome visitors to tastings rooms in places like Bainbridge Island, Chehalis, and Concrete. Here’s an unrelated piece of information: Concrete is also the setting of This Boys Life by Tobias Wolff, one of the great American coming-of-age memoirs.
There are 18 pending craft distilling applications, with new ones filed with the LCB almost daily, or at least it seems. I call the applicants all the time to learn their plans, and I should mention that not all the applications are to be taken entirely seriously. But when you think about the fact that two years ago there were exactly zero distilleries in Washington State, and that it had been that way since prohibition, it’s all pretty remarkable.
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Booze News
Smith and Sullivan’s tasting room will be up and running by mid-May or early June.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Apr 09, 2010 at 04:19PM
Tony Smith and Smith and Sullivan’s copper still.
Kevin Sullivan says the new microdistillery he founded with partner Tony Smith will open between mid-May and early June of this year. Smith and Sullivan (that’s the brand name) will start out by making vodka, says Sullivan. Good timing, Kevin. Vodka, which craft bartenders have basically banished from the bar for the past two or three years, is finally starting to make its comeback.
Down the line Smith and Sullivan hopes to introduce grappas, limoncello, and cognacs to the brand.
Sullivan always wanted to run his own business, and Smith is a big wine guy. When Washington State law changed in 2008, opening up opportunities for craft spiritmakers, the two friends saw a viable business opp. Sullivan went on to learn distilling from Washington-State vodka pioneers Don Poffenroth and Kent Fleischmann of Spokane’s Dry Fly.
The distillery’s South Park address—it’s at 9320 15th Avenue South—neighbors Nota Bene Cellars and Cadence Wineries, two of the eight wineries that make up the South Seattle Artisan Wineries. The wineries all open up their tasting rooms on the second Saturday of the month from February through August. No doubt S and S will adjust its hours accordingly.
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Oeno Files
A tasting that ends, serendipitously enough, when happy hour begins.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Mar 18, 2010 at 02:50PM
Wild Ginger Bellevue hosts a free tasting on the third Sunday of every month. This Sunday: the wines of Georgetown.
So you may have heard tell about a burgeoning community of winemakers in Georgetown, now here is your chance to try the wines. In Bellevue.
The South Seattle Artisan Wineries group will hold a free tasting at Wild Ginger’s Eastside outpost in the Bravern shopping center from 1 to 4pm this Sunday, March 21. (The restaurant hosts a free tasting on the third Sunday of every month.)
In a happy coincidence, Wild Ginger Bellevue’s seven-days-a-week happy hour starts at 4pm. And here is the thing about that: there are fragrant duck sliders on the HH menu, three of them for $4. If you’ve ever had the deconstructed version of those little babies at Seattle’s Wild Ginger, you know what you are in for. And you know it is good.
Wines to be tasted:
Cadence Winery
Fall Line Winery
Note Benne Cellars
O-S Winery
O’Shea Scarborough
You can also visit the Georgetown wineries themselves on the second Saturday of each month, now through August, for a sampling. Each tasting is $5, but the fee is waived if you buy a bottle. Find details here.
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Brews News
SoDo’s new “nanobrewery” opens its tasting room at 3:30pm every Friday.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 26, 2010 at 10:33AM
SAM Remix begins at 8pm tonight—a full three hours after the universally recognized cocktail hour. What to do in the interim? Well here’s something: Epic Ales, the new SoDo “nanobrewery,” opens up its tasting room from 3:30 to 8pm every Friday.
Brewer Cody Morris—he’s the one that taught me the nerdy word “nanobrewery,” now I can’t stop using it—makes four different beers set to hit stores in early March, but you can taste them today inside his tasting room at 3201 First Ave S, Ste 104.
The Solar Transamplifier most resembles a Belgian witbier. “The major difference,” according to the web site, “being a change from wheat and oats to rice, and also switching from coriander and bitter orange peal to ginger and chamomile.” Terra-Saurus ale is made with shiitake mushrooms, and the Simple Ale is a hoppy and malty beer in the Northwest spirit. The fourth and final beer, the OTTO-Optimizer, is a porter brewed with Turkish coffee and designed to be sipped alongside dessert.
In fact, Morris says all four were created with food in mind. “For a wine person, restaurants are a great experience,” he says. For a beer fan, not so much. He aims to change that by offering local restaurants “true culinary ales” to pair with their food. The brewer points out that such a distinction is important for setting your beers apart in the glutted field of craft brewing. When Morris was working to get legal with the state, he was told there were 17 other breweries seeking licenses. That’s a lot of beer.
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Breaking Booze News
Sun Liquor owner Michael Klebeck hopes to open his distillery and tasting room by late summer 2010.
Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Feb 12, 2010 at 10:43AM
Klebeck hopes to create a gin in the tradition of his beloved Hendrick’s
Thanks to head barman Erik Chapman, Capitol Hill cocktail lounge Sun Liquor is already a destination for gin lovers. Now owner Michael Klebeck—who also co-owns the Top Pot Doughnut chain—plans to open his own boutique gin distillery and tasting room nearby at 514 E Pike Street.
“Gin is so clean,” says Klebeck, who loves the deliciously cucumbery Hendrick’s, from Scotland. “It’s an alcohol that tells you when you’ve had enough.” While he is not a trained distiller, Klebeck says he has always been a chemistry geek and plans to use innovation, coupled with properly installed, top-of-the-line equipment, to create a boutique gin in the English style. Botanicals will be sourced from a farm in Eastern Washington.
Klebeck has already applied for a craft distillers license and begun to smash up the interior of a 1930s warehouse near the Mercedes dealership on Pike.
No word yet on what the gin will be called, though it will be packaged under the Sun Liquor Manufacturing Company label, and will be easily distinguishable from some of the other small-batch bottles made nearby. “I love the Pacific Northwest, but I would never put a salmon on the bottle,” says Klebeck.
He says the distillery should be up and running in five to six months.
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Seattle Restaurant Openings,
Capitol Hill,
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