Most people aren’t approached without warning and asked to open a distillery. And Nin Truong and Christa Thomas already had plenty going on when they were offered that very opportunity.
“It was pretty much out of the blue,” says Thomas, whose past successes as a local small business owner with partner Truong had led to their being contacted by the global Our/Vodka brand in November of 2013. “We definitely had to think about it.” Neither had any alcohol-specific experience to recommend them to the industry. But five months later, they had signed on.
The Concept
The Our/Vodka project was launched in 2011 in Stockholm by six young entrepreneurs with a vision for “a global vodka made by local partners around the world.” In short, Our/Vodka looks for “adoptive parents” to help build a city-specific team, open and run an urban microdistillery, and take charge of most everything including community involvement, marketing and sales in that city.
They’re given monetary resources, expertise from other Our/Vodka cities, and the Our/Vodka recipe, shared by all of the distillers but made using local ingredients specific to each city. Detroit’s vodka is corn-based, for instance; Seattle is using Palouse-sourced winter wheat. Thus, though the little white-labeled, crown-capped bottles look the same, each location’s distillate turns out differently.
Soon, Thomas and Truong were all in. They found themselves flying to Our/Berlin for a global meeting of every team that had been chosen (11 cities so far), and to Detroit to see how the concept had been put into operation in the States. Back in Seattle, fate found them the old Ballard Camera space on Northwest Market, along with their third partner Stephen Pleadwell, head distiller Allison Law and sales manager Olivia Lee. Tomorrow, after more than a year of learning and hard work, the distillery will open to the public at noon, becoming only the third up-and-running iteration of Our/Vodka worldwide.
Pernod Ricard
The Our/Vodka project is backed by Pernod Ricard, a French spirits portfolio (Chivas Regal, Jameson, Havana Club, Beefeater, Absolut and more) and one of the biggest players in the industry. It has earned the Our/Seattle team some blowback, which Truong can understand but argues against. “We know how many craft distillers are doing amazing things in this neighborhood, city and region,” he says. “We’re not out to mess with that. For us, it’s more about the connection. And we’re doing it all right here.”
Lee adds that Our/Vodka co-founder Åsa Caap pitched the concept to Pernod Ricard seven times before they accepted the idea. “She cried at our opening. This is her baby.”
In that sense, Pernod Ricard’s role has been little more than that of a path forger—and, as Thomas notes, “the only way this could happen.” Our/Seattle is self-distributed (Lee spends plenty of time driving around town with boxes of little bottles filling the back of her car), profits are shared and the company harbors no plans to grow by adding Our/Gin, Our/Whiskey and so on.
Global Ties
Our/Seattle aims to keep their product as simple as possible—because, after all, it’s vodka. But the spirit nevertheless gains wonderful complexity from its business model. It’s part of a unique international domino effect: just as Our/Detroit learned from Our/Berlin, the head distiller at Our/Detroit came to Seattle to train Law, she plans to visit Our/Houston to pass that knowledge on as the Texas distillery gets underway.
Even as I sat in the Our/Seattle tasting room listening to talk of the vodka’s global ties, proof of them walked through the front door. In spite of the papered-up windows, a couple in town from Hamburg, Germany had recognized the brand from its flagship location in Berlin, and couldn’t resist taking a peek inside. They ended up spending a half hour talking to the team, touring the distillery and taking suggestions for where to eat dinner and what to do in Ballard before they leave. Few other business models facilitate the same thing.
The Vodka Itself
At 80 proof, each 375-milliliter bottle is deliberately sized and crown-capped to encourage sharing at social gatherings. With a richness imparted by the winter wheat and smoothness despite very moderate filtration, its flavor (yes) is also somewhat floral, and clearly distinct from that of Our/Detroit and Our/Berlin. It’s both suitable for sipping and a perfect base for infusions and cocktails alike. Try it tomorrow at the distillery’s grand opening in Ballard from noon to 6 p.m.
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