Food And Drink
Distilleries in Portland, Oregon
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Distilleries with Tasting Rooms
Additional Distilleries
Several of Portland's craft distillers are located in inner Southeast Portland, in an area dubbed "Distillery Row." The following list highlights a few of the city's most visitor-friendly distilleries.
Distilleries With Tasting Rooms
Clear Creek Distillery
Tasting room and store open Monday through Saturday; tours offered only during annual open houses.
One of the first players on Portland's distilling scene was Clear Creek Distillery, which made its debut in 1985. Using local fruit, Clear Creek distiller/owner Steve McCarthy turns out a variety of products — eaux de vie, grappa, whiskey, liqueurs and brandy — cited by The New York Times Magazine as "what many experts believe to be the best fruit brandies ever made in the U.S."
Clear Creek's pièce de résistance is its stunning Pear-in-the-Bottle brandy, which features a nearly perfect, fully-grown pear inside each bottle. And just how do they get those pears in there? Bottles are hand-tied to tree limbs just after flowering, allowing the pears to grow to maturity inside.
House Spirits Distillery
Tasting room open Monday-Saturday; distillery tours offered every Saturday.
One of the original members of Portland's "Distillery Row," House Spirits was founded in 2002 by two former brewers who wanted to stamp the flavors of the Pacific Northwest onto their versions of class spirits.
House Spirits' innovative and popular offerings include the full-bodied, herbal Aviation Gin; Krogstad Aquavit, a premium spirit flavored with anise and caraway; and a limited-release line with offerings such as whiskey, ouzo and rum.
McMenamins Edgefield
Distillery Bar open daily.
The McMenamin brothers, pioneers of Portland's brewpub revolution, were also early adopters of micro-distilling, launching the Edgefield Distillery way back in 1998. In typical McMenamins fashion, Edgefield's offerings are abundant, including whiskey, brandy, gin and coffee liqueur.
The Edgefield resort, located east of Portland, also boasts a golf course, spa, movie theater and nine bars and restaurants — including the Distillery Bar, where visitors can watch the 12-foot-high, gleaming copper and stainless steel still in action, and, of course, sample the still's output.
New Deal Distillery
Tasting room open Saturday and Sunday afternoons; tours also available by appointment.
Portland's first vodka distillery, New Deal, uses locally grown ingredients and Bull Run water (Portland's municipal water, from the Bull Run watershed near Mount Hood, considered some of the purest water in the nation), for its vodkas, which come in traditional, "sipping" and hot-pepper varieties.
Rogue Spirits
Tours offered at 2 p.m., Monday-Friday.
Since 2003, Rogue Spirits — a spinoff of successful craft brewer Rogue Ales — has distilled a variety of award-winning small-batch spirits in traditional handcrafted copper pot stills. The Portland location, which produces Rogue's White, Dark and Hazelnut Spiced rums, was Oregon's first rum distillery.
Additional Distilleries
Some of these distilleries also have tasting rooms that are open limited hours; visit individual websites for details.
