Washougal distillery earns double-gold medal

Rediviva Distilling’s Cherry Almond Liqueur wins big at 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition

By Doug Flanagan
July 18, 2024 1:16 pm
Business, Latest News, News

Rediviva Distilling maintenance technician Paul Clark (left), owner Gary Phillips (center) and lead distiller Daniel Ruiz hold bottles of the Washougal distillery’s spirits, July 11, 2024. (Photos by Doug Flanagan/Post-Record)

Gary Phillips, a chemical engineer by trade, figured he could succeed in the world of distilling by deploying a strict science-based approach. He quickly learned, however, that it takes much more than simple recipe-following to create an exceptional liqueur.

“It’s quite a marriage between the science and the art of it,” Phillips said. “There’s science and engineering with the equipment and the temperature and the timing. Well, that sort of gets you in the ballpark, but it doesn’t get you across the goal line. For that bit at the end, you absolutely have to have a sensory valuation.”

It didn’t take long for this way of thinking to pay off. Today, Phillips’ Washougal-based distillery, Rediviva Distilling, is getting accolades in the industry after earning a double-gold medal for its Cherry Almond Liqueur at the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, one of the world’s most prestigious liquor-judging events.

“(Earning double-gold at this event) is really a big deal,” said Phillips, adding that a double-gold requires unanimous approval from all of the event’s judges. “In fact, it surprised the hell out of us. We thought it was good, and people who tasted it thought it was good. But the fact that we got a double-gold shocked us. We feel so good about it because it sort of puts us on the map. We can talk about it.”

Phillips owned and operated several Washougal-based material production businesses before launching Rediviva Distilling in 2020, transforming a building originally designed as a highly specialized facility for polysilicon manufacturing into a distillery.

“It had been in mind for a long time, actually for 50-some years,” Phillips said. “When I was in college, in chemical engineering class, you had to do a project, and one of the projects that I chose was designing a computer program that you would use to design a still for distilling alcohol. Probably that was the moment that I was thinking, ‘Yeah, I’d like to do that someday.’ But it took a long time to get there.”

Phillips said the facility renovation work was done “pretty much single-handedly” by Paul Clark, one of his longtime employees and a “master craftsman.”

“It took about two years,” Clark said. “I did all the coatings, the electric, the plumbing. It was fun. I really like this kind of work, and to be able to take something old and repurpose it was just a no-brainer for me.”

In 2021, Phillips hired Daniel Ruiz, who previously worked as a distiller at Clear Creek Distillery in Portland for 14 years.

“I was looking for someone that had expertise in distilling, and particularly, the products of Washington state — the apples, the peaches, the plums, the grapes,” Phillips said. “That’s basically what Daniel was doing for 14 years.”

The distillery purchases virtually all of its fresh fruit from Pacific Northwest vendors and bases all of its spirits on wine that it either produces itself or purchases from wineries.

“I’m glad I focused on (fruit), because the mouthfeel and the sensation that you get from a fruit-based liqueur or a fruit-based spirit is a lot different than grain-based,” he said. “Whiskeys and bourbons are made from corn or wheat or rice, and it’s just a different taste profile. Living here in Washington, where we have all of those fruits, that’s been our focus, and I don’t think that we regret going down that path.”

The fruit-focused approach suits Ruiz just fine.

“We have to start out with a high-quality product to begin with, because if we deal with low-quality fruit, that transitions to the final product,” he said. “We’re really just capturing the whole fruit, the essence of the fruit, and then through the fermentation and distillation process, we want to capture all that great flavor and aromas that we start with and transition that into a fruit spirit in a bottle that people take home with them and taste throughout the year.”

The distillery currently produces five spirits (Blackberry Liqueur, Blue Plum Brandy, Orange Liqueur, Cherry Brandy and Cherry Almond Liqueur) — all of which can be imbibed “neat” or as part of a cocktail — and plans to add three more to its lineup.

“Our (products are) all single batch,” Clark said. “A lot of people just buy neutral grain spirits, flavor them, and put their label on them. Ours are all done in-house. It takes five bottles of wine to make one bottle of our product.”

That process makes the Rediviva’s spirits more costly to produce, but in the opinion of their creators, also more flavorful.

“Other (distilleries) are buying alcohol, which is very cheap to buy from a big chemical plant back in Indiana or Illinois,” Phillips said. “But a lot of people, maybe they’re consuming more for the effect than they for the taste, so maybe the taste doesn’t make so much difference for them. We’re targeting our product to people that are more appreciative of the spirit rather than just the alcohol effect.”

The first phase of Phillps’ vision for the distillery included the installation of the 150-gallon pot and fermentation equipment, which Ruiz and Clark use now. The second phase includes the installation of another, larger still that will allow the distillery to expand its operations.

“It’s a commercial still, and it operates under vacuum, so we’re looking in phase two to increase our capacity for (our current) five products as we develop other products,” Phillips said. “(The new still) will allow us to increase our capacity, and the vacuum capability will allow us to have a higher quality product, because when you operate under vacuum, the temperature we can heat at is much lower.”

Phillips said a third phase will involve the production of additional products, including non-alcoholic wine and resveratrol, a phenol found in the skin of grapes, blueberries, raspberries and other fruits, that is commonly used as a dietary supplement.

“The other thing we’re looking at doing is contract production for other (businesses) and collaborating with them,” Phillips said. “For instance, we’ve reached out to some wineries in eastern Washington and had some conversations with the idea that we’ll work with them to process their grapes into spirits like we’re currently making, (possibly) even under their label, and wine-based products.”

Phillips said he may eventually decide to construct another building on the distillery’s property to function as a tasting room, which could also host small concerts and other events.

But for now, Ruiz is working to establish an offsite tasting room in conjunction with another alcoholic beverage purveyor.

“We’re in the fruit-based (spirits business), so we’ve been talking to some other wineries,” Phillips said, adding that he would love to find a “winery that would like to partner with us, where we have a joint tasting room.”

Rediviva products have been featured at local businesses, including Tommy O’s in Camas and ilani Casino Resort in LaCenter, and will be featured at the Craft Brew and Wine Fest in Vancouver, Aug. 9-11, and Summer Nights Sips and Bites in downtown Camas, Aug. 15.

They’re also available (or will soon be available) at Washougal Times, Clark County Total Wine and Safeway stores; Tommy O’s; The Grocery Cocktail and Social in Vancouver; the Thirsty Sasquatch in Vancouver; the Waterfront Taphouse in Vancouver; and through the distillery’s website at redivivadistill ing.com.

“That hasn’t been easy,” Phillips said. “I totally underestimated the difficulty in actually creating a brand, a brand that people would recognize and say, ‘This is high quality product, and I like to get it.’ It’s challenging. But I feel that just over the last six months, we started breaking through. A restaurant owner in Oregon told (Daniel) that they were really excited about our products, and that makes us feel good.”

For more information, visit redivivadistilling.com.

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