House Spirits Distillery

Several weekends ago my friends and I embarked on our second annual "Why don't we live in a beach house?!?" beach house trip to Oregon. This year was a huge departure from the style of our previous trip in that we actually planned ahead. Rather than scramble for a place to stay when we arrived at Newport we booked our beach house months in advance. It was a beauty of a house that could sleep 15 and included two kitchens and a jacuzzi. The plan for our weekend trip: days on the beach, evenings in the hot tub, and as many brewery and distillery visits as we could cram in.

The party consisted of three veterans from the 2007 trip and eleven friends of ours from various social circles. As one of the original three it was partially my responsibility to make sure it would be a memorable trip. My friend Jon is well organized and a very strong planner so we let him take the reins but I was left with the important decision of which distillery to visit besides Rogue.

The decision came down to either House or Integrity Spirits. Integrity just entered the absinthe market with a new product called Trillium but House makes the Aviation Gin that I know and love. I finally settled on House Spirits. The tour was easily arranged by email and Matt (in charge of tours) was very communicative and flexible. Tours are available almost every day by appointment unless they happen to be out of town.

When we arrived Matt brought us all in to the distillery and began his spiel. We were given a very informative talk about the history of House Spirits as well as background information on vodka, gin, and aquavit. We experienced a little thrill of excitement when we were allowed to stick our fingers in a stream of gin still going through the distilling process. My friends (including a homebrewer and biochemist) had a ton of questions and he answered all of them well.

When we were finished assailing Matt with questions he led us to another part of the distillery to talk about future products. House Spirits has a rye whiskey in the works that will be aged 8-9 years and they plan to release what they are calling an "apothecary line." They will be bottling their small-batch and one-off products and making them available in 350ml bottles. He also enticed us with a description of their custom whiskey program. The $4900 price tag seemed high until he mentioned that a barrel yields at least 100 750ml bottles. We all have some ability at mental arithmetic so the changes in expressions when we realized that perhaps we could make this work were almost instantaneous.

After the tour Matt led us in to the Spirit & Cocktail Boutique where we sampled the Medeyoff Vodka, Aviation Gin, Krogstad Aquavit, and Marteau Absinthe. The absinthe was tasted first neat, than with water added, and finally with a little simple syrup. Imagine our disappointment to discover that it was not yet available for purchase! Not one of us would presume to be call our self knowledgeable regarding absinthe but it was a pleasure to drink.

We were at the distillery for an hour and a half or so and we all had a fantastic time. All of their products are excellent and I'm excited to see what is in store for the future!