Distillery's a Swig of things to come

April 22, 2010 by Mike Irwin in The Wenatchee World

CASHMERE — Ever grumble about the lack of a distillery amid our region’s many wineries? Well, put a cork in it.

Owners of It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere, North Central Washington’s first commercial distillery since (maybe) Prohibition’s backroom bottlers, have fired up the ol’ still — right here in downtown — to produce a handmade Chilean-style brandy as their new company’s first spirited offering.

Distilled from local wines, the briefly aged, honey-hued potable kicks off a future line of liquors that will include pear brandy and pure corn moonshine, both due in six weeks. A variety of additional brandies, whiskeys and other liquors are already in the pipeline and will be available to customers over the next two years.

“That’s the beauty of being an artisan craft distillery,” said owner Colin Levi. “We’re not bound to producing the same product day in and day out. Instead, we’re committed to unique, interesting liquors that are handmade from local ingredients. The big companies don’t do it that way.”

From their 8,000-square-foot facility in a former fruit warehouse, Levi and co-distiller Eric Lunstrum have distilled, blended, filtered, bottled, labeled, packaged and sold scores of cases of their initial batch of brandy. Most of the bottles were sold in their on-site tasting room, but Lunstrum said a growing list of local bars and restaurants have committed to including the brandy on their liquor lists.