Washougal distillery earns double-gold medal

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.”