And on the umpteenth try...I finally secured a bottle of Washington State's first distilled whiskey since Prohibition, Dry Fly from Spokane. Batches 1 and 2 from the hand-crafted and bottled shop were gone from our state-run liquor stores before their official "street dates." Surprise! even governments run afoul of the law. Batches 3 and 4 slipped beneath my finely-tuned craft alcohol radar. But I wasn't missing number 5. Even though I had to drive around in, um, squares circumnavigating University Village to find the relocated liquor joint.Kent and Don, the gents behind Dry Fly, have been a two-man wrecking crew on the dusty laws of Washington. Working with local state senator Chris Marr (D-Spokane), they helped push through the state's first craft distilling statute in 2007. Further wound up getting legislation enacted to reduce the fees associated with opening a craft distillery (as well as requiring half the ingredients be state-grown). Then, earlier this year, SB 6485 was signed into law, raising the productivity threshold from 20,000 gallons annually to 60,000.
I imagine you've heard of craft or microbreweries? They number more than 1,500 nationwide today. Sounds like a big number, and their popularity and profile has no doubt been spearheaded by the industry's notorious leading lights (Sam Calagione, for instance). Though when measured in domestic beer sales, craft breweries still only pull down single-digit percentage of market share. Less than 4.5% of the total, if my math is correct. Though in a down economy, when the total beer market declined 2.2% last year, craft brewing sales rose 7%. (Numbers courtesy of the Brewers Association.) In the past 30 years, when most date the dawn of the current craft beer explosion, small, independent brewers numbered but 100.
Safe to say, the Spokane boys are well in front of the wave to come. At best count, there are just north of 300 craft distillers nationally today. (The number of licensed distillers is pegged about 2.5x that number, but the number of craft distillers listed by the American Distilling Institute -- the closest thing to a single governing association for the industry -- lists the smaller number their annual directory.) Yet in recent weeks, in addition to Washington, Illinois (two craft distilleries in the state) and Iowa (three) have passed legislation that could encourage entrepreneurs and *cough, cough* home distillers into going pro."White" spirits (gin, vodka; anything that doesn't require any significant aging) are typically the first spirits many of these distillers produce while they wait for their whiskey (or rye or bourbon) to mature. In short order, one can expect Oregon's legion of distillers (28, or 10% of the national total, and growing) to start introducing whiskeys.
Oh yeah, how does the Dry Fly taste? For a whiskey made from wheat and aged just over two years, it is light-bodied though not without a bite. You won't mistake it for a Kentucky bourbon or Tennessee whiskey any time soon. Will be interesting to see how it ages. Now back to my Compleat Distiller.
