Though Lauren Oscilowski says she “instantly” fell in love with distillation as a new employee at Glacier Distilling in Coram, Montana, she admits her first attempts at her own batches were barely drinkable.
Oscilowski has come a long way since then. She now owns and operates Spotted Bear Spirits in Whitefish, Montana, which she opened in December 2015. The team there crafts vodka, coffee liqueur, gin, and four cellos (limon, lime, grapefruit and mandarin), with an agave spirit in the works. The rustic-modern tasting room, with windows that look into the small distillery, offers an array of cocktails that draw heavily on seasonal, locally sourced ingredients.
The enterprise pays homage to western Montana. The distillery takes its name from the Spotted Bear Ranger District, a point of entry into the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex of Montana’s Rocky Mountains. Oscilowski had visited the area with a group of friends, each of whom spent their days on separate adventures and regrouped in the evening around the campfire to share stories over sips of whiskey.
“I wanted Spotted Bear to be a place of congregation, for memories to be made and stories shared,” Oscilowski says. “A meeting place for our community and a place of creativity.”
Oscilowski first spent four years at Glacier Distilling and later took online courses in fermentation science through the Siebel Institute. Then, she decided it was time to branch out on her own.
“I live in Whitefish and at the time there were no other distilleries, and planting roots in this mountain community felt like a logical progression,” she says. “I try and bring my lessons learned from Glacier Distilling into our approach at Spotted Bear Spirits. I have a small, modular setup with a variety of stills specific to different spirits and I encourage my staff to play. Always play. If all of this stops being fun, what’s the point?”
Spotted Bear has worked hard to integrate other small producers into as many aspects of its work as possible. “The community drives our business,” Oscilowski says. “We have a wealth of talent in this little valley of ours.”
The tasting room’s furniture, cocktail menus, art, cocktail shakers and screen-printed apparel are all locally made. Ditto the cocktail ingredients, which feature locally roasted coffee and locally made ginger beer, and organic produce from local farms whenever possible, plus house-made syrups, shrubs, tonics and bitters.
Oscilowski is planning to release a gin rested in used apple and cherry brandy barrels this holiday season. “The slight fruit flavor plays well with our floral gin,” she says. And long term, the company is poised for growth, with an off-site production facility and a large barrel house in the plans for the next two to three years.
Spotted Bear Spirits is currently available throughout Montana, in liquor stores and bars, and in the Whitefish tasting room.
