Two Distilleries on Whidbey Island
Two small craft distilleries on Whidbey Island
During the Labor Day weekend, I spent time with my family on Whidbey Island. Starting with my grandfather in 1912 we have owned property on the island ever since. My father grew up here and my two sisters and I also spent our summers at our cabin.
Whidbey is stationed in the middle of the Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest. The area is also called The Salish Sea. The first use of the term Salish Sea was in 1988, when marine biologist Bert Webber from Bellingham, Washington, created the name for the combined waters in the region with the intention to complement the names Georgia Strait, Puget Sound, and Strait of Juan de Fuca, not replace them. It is an all-encompassing term now more widely used in the PNW.
The term Salish also refers to the indigenous population that has existed throughout the northwest for several millennia. Tscha-kole-chy is the Salish name for Whidbey Island.
During the 1790’s Captain Vancouver explored throughout what is now the Puget Sound or the Salish Sea. Whidbey Island was named after Joseph Whidbey the sailing master for George Vancouver during these explorations. Joseph Whidbey, on June 2, 1792, as a member of a surveying team, discovered Deception Pass, a swift tidal strait separating Whidbey from Fidalgo Island to the north, proving the body of land was an island. Deception Pass Bridge, built in 1935, connects Whidbey Island with Fidalgo Island.
The Puget Sound region was formed by the collision and attachment of many terranes (“microcontinents”) to the North American Plate between about 50 to 10 million years ago. About 15,000 years ago during the Vashon Glaciation, the Puget Sound region was covered by a lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet.
Labor Day weekend is one of our traditional times to spend at the cabin. It is also my younger sister's birthday. Exploring the island is rarely a priority for us as there has usually been some kind of upkeep for the cabin. Sometimes getting ready for winter is like putting a cover on the boat. Sometimes taking care of the property as in weeding and general gardening. There is time for more than a little R&R too.
Last year with Covid-19 all over the place many of the sites on the island were closed down. Whidbey Island residents are conscious of the challenges of being a tourist destination. Most restaurants and distilleries and wine tasting locations were not open last year.
But now they are open for business again.
The first distillery we visited was Cultus Bay Distillery. It is in the Sandy Hook neighborhood of Clinton. On the Southend of Whidbey Island. First, you drive to the patron’s house, Kathy Parks, where she will drive you down to her distillery.
Very mom & pop, or moonshiners almost. All legal though.
Cultus Bay offers several whiskeys, a couple of brandy’s, and a delicious gin. The gin is so herbaceous you cannot taste the alcohol in it.
Their award winner is Te Absolv vodka which won the 2017 bronze medal from the American Distillery Institute.
Cultus Bay Distillery makes every effort to source its ingredients from Whidbey Island. Some of their grain does come from Eastern Washington but for the most part, it is very local. You can only find their products on Whidbey Island in fact.
Being conscientious of their footprint Cultus Bay Distillery recycles their water as much as possible and their spent grain is fed for sheep on the island. Their end product waste is PH balanced to reduce environmental impact too.
The other distillery we visited was the Whidbey Island distillery again in Langley. It is not far from Cultus Bay. Here tastings are free as they are at Cultus Bay too. What Whidbey Island Distillery offers most is a collection of liquors and one whiskey. The liquors are raspberry, blackberry, and a loganberry version as well. Sometimes they have offered blueberry or a mix of blueberry and blackberry. The offerings change a little each year but they are wonderful.
Whidbey Island Distillery is a family-owned business run by three generations of the Heising family. We set out in 2009 to make distilled spirits on Washington’s Whidbey Island, and in September 2011 they sold the first bottle of their Loganberry Liqueur.
Loganberries have a long history on Whidbey Island. The Greenbank Farm near Coupeville was home to the largest loganberry farm in the nation at one time. It is an interesting history for the place.
Whidbey Island Distillery has won numerous awards and their Blackberry Liqueur holds a 98 rating by the Beverage Testing Institute making it the highest-rated spirit (of any kind) produced in North America.
Their Blackberry Liqueur is a little different each year too. It is a mixture of locally grown blackberries of course, but on Whidbey Island, there are two varieties of blackberry vines. The Himalayan Blackberry is not native and Rubus ursinus is a native variety. This version is also called the trailing blackberry.
Each distillery as much as possible sources its ingredients from Whidbey Island. Some are taken from Skagit valley but nothing is from out of the state of Washington. If you ever get yourself to Whidbey Island consider giving one of these distilleries a visit.
Cheers,
Thank you for reading.
