Last week, we heard from Northwest distillers on their favorite local coffee roasters and cafés. They named stand-outs from Portland’s quality-crazed Water Avenue to Boise and Nampa’s community-oriented Flying M Coffee to powerhouse mini-chains like Caffe Ladro of Seattle. This week, check out a few of your favorite coffee professionals’ favorite distilleries and spirits around the region.
Oliver Stormshak, Olympia Coffee Roasting Co., Olympia, Wash.: “I’m really fond of Organic Nation,” says Stormshak. “An Oregon based company, I recently discovered them as a fellow Good Food Award winner.” Olympia Coffee Roasting won their Good Food Award for sourcing and responsibly producing their Ethiopia Konga Yirgacheffe coffee—which, incidentally, also helped earn the roaster the highest combined scores in the history of the Roaster of the Year competition to win that award as well. While Organic Nation won a Good Food Award for their vodka, gin and rye whiskey. Which is Stormshak’s favorite? “I find their gin to be very clean and transparent in flavor.”
Robert McGee, Whiskey Gulch Coffee Co., Port Orchard, Wash.; Whiskey Gulch knows their spirits: besides serving coffee in their shop, they serve local wine, beer and liquor. “One of our favorites that we feature in the shop is Blue Spirits Distilling from Chelan, Washington. Jeff and Heidi [Soehren] do a fantastic job of creating some really pure and flavorful spirits,” says McGee. He also loves the espresso vodka—no surprise—and raves about it shaken with orange peel in a bare-bones espresso martini. He also likes to splash a bit of Blue Spirits’ bourbon or rye in his coffee from time to time. Blue Spirits, for their part, also roasts coffee alongside the distillery.
George Giannakos, Revolver Coffee, Vancouver: Thanks to recent remedies applied to BC’s antiquated liquor laws, local spirits production has soared. Revolver Coffee co-founder Giannakos is currently exploring the works of two stand-out British Columbian distilleries—Vancouver’s year-old Long Table Distillery and peninsular Victoria Spirits. Giannakos is particularly keen on Victoria Spirits gin, which stakes claim to the title of “Canada’s first premium gin.” As production increases across the province, Giannakos says he is “looking forward to discovering more distilleries in the area.”
