Oola Distillery
Oola founder Kirby Kallas-Lewis runs his Union Street distillery and tasting room with the aid of managing director Brandon Gillespie, a former Mighty-O Donuts GM. Talk about creative confluence: Kallas-Lewis’s wife KT Niehoff runs her dance company out of an adjoining studio. Outfitted with a kitchen, the studio doubles as an event space for tasting parties and culinary wingdings. Oola’s long list of products currently in the works includes a chili-laced vodka (made with peppers grown in Yakima); for now only its caramelly gin and a smooth wheaty vodka are in the bottle. The gin and vodka are currently available to sample at the Capitol Hill tasting room, a two-level construction designed by neighborhood architect Graham Baba, that Kallas-Lewis hopes to one day turn into a bar celebrating handcrafted libations of all sorts.