Seattle, no surprise, has a pretty good nose for the phony, the bogus, the sham, the counterfeit. Even if the venture gets some bold-face names to front the deal, a business conceived and bankrolled by a distant corporate sponsor gets found out pretty quickly. Such was the case with a "micro-distillery" in Ballard called Our/Seattle Vodka, which had its production facility and tasting room at 1836 NW Market St.
And by micro, we mean really, really tiny production. A thousand half-bottles per batch, from Distilled Resources in Rigby, Idaho. (Parenthetically: there's nothing inherently wrong with a start-up company acquiring its base spirits from outside sources. The regulatory hassles involved in a getting distillery license are fearsome. A gent named Mike Thiede of Ginkgo Forest Winery & Ginkgo Distillery in Tacoma holds the artisan distillery license for BroVo Spirits; Marteau Absinthe was originally custom-distilled in Switzerland, and so on.)
But here's the thing: Our/Seattle Vodka was far from unique, distilled from local invasive plants or the exhaust fumes of Greenlake hydroplane races. It was, rather, a skunk-works project launched by half a dozen creative types whose Swedish design agency worked for Pernod Ricard, a worldwide drinks company based in France. Eager to work on a concept that would appeal to a younger clientele, the Swedes came up with vodka in a 375-ml bottle with a crown cap like a Coke.
The stuff inside the bottle was almost irrelevant; it would be all about the buzz. So Berlin first, then London, then Detroit, Amsterdam, Seattle. Eventually New York, eventually Miami. The key to the project was to involve local artists, to make the brand as "local" as possible. In Seattle, Pernod Ricard recruited designer Thom Jones (Semigood Furniture) and music promoter Mike Meckling of Neumo's (photo). And in April they were ready to open on Market in Ballard, in a space once occupied by Ballard Camera but vacant for several years. Alas, it was not meant to be.
In a neighborhood studded with legit micro-distilleries (Mischief, Old Ballard, Captive, not to mention 206 Distillery and Sound Spirits in Interbay) Our/Seattle Vodka was met with indifference, if not hostility, not the least because Seattle is already home to scores of distilleries. Statewide, since the Legislature passed the craft distilling act eight years ago, over 100 distilleries have sprung up, following the mandate that at least half the ingredients come from Washington. Our/Seattle never explained what made its product specifically local, because there wasn't anything local about it. We should have seen it coming. In fact, in a prescient article for The Stranger two years ago, Bethany Jean Clement called the venture "Absolut Phoney."
For its part, Our/Vodka scrubbed all mention of Seattle from its website. The Facebook page posted a farewell of sorts: "Thanks to all our amazing customers and fans for following us. Unfortunately Our/Seattle is closing down this month. Despite our efforts and great team we didn't manage to make it work as we had hoped." I guess not.
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