If you ever find yourself passing through Loon Lake, about 30 miles north of Spokane, consider taking a moment to visit 2 Loons Distillery. The blue warehouse, with "distillery" painted in red on its metal roof stands out from the highway, inviting travelers to experience its craft spirits firsthand.
The distillery's name pays homage to the aquatic loons that inhabit the nearby lake, while also nodding to how owners Trisha Schwartz and her husband, Greg, have worked as a two-person team for the past 10 years.
"We're the two loons," Greg Schwartz jokes.
During the peak of production, if one of them is in the back tending to the distilling operations, the other is assisting customers in the small tasting room and retail area at the front of the building.
The Schwartzes first became interested in distilling after participating in a bottling party at Dry Fly Distilling in Spokane. At the time, they'd been running a used car lot in Loon Lake with Trisha's father, but were also looking for a change. The couple dove headfirst into the distilling world.
"There weren't a lot of distilleries in Spokane, so we did some research online and found a school, a weeklong 'how to open a distillery' [course]," Trisha says.
After the weeklong course at a community college in Western Washington, they visited distilleries in other states for more research.
Tricia and Greg began experimenting with an 8-gallon still. Over time, they scaled up their operations to a 260-gallon still for whiskey and a 100-gallon rectified still for vodka, gin and other flavored clear spirits.
"We just went straight to vodka and corn whiskey," Trisha says. "And then we started just kind of adding. We added a flavored one called blackberry, and then we did a gin and sort of built on that. Now we have about 15 products."
The Schwartzes source their malt, or germinated grains, from Spokane-based LINC Malt.
"So now all our barleys come from the Palouse, all our ryes are just to the west a little bit more in the Ritzville area, all our corn is coming from that area," Greg says.
The distilling process begins in a mash tun, where grains are fermented in hot water to extract carbohydrates and turn them into sugar, a concoction also known as a "distiller's beer."
The distiller's beer is then cooled and put into fermentation tanks that build yeast beds on the bottom before the liquid goes into the stills.
Occasionally, 2 Loons also buys bulk beer and wine from local breweries and wineries that didn't meet retail standards, skipping the mashing process to create small-batch whiskey or brandy. Look for a sticker on the bottle to see if it came from one of these local partnerships.
"Beer is just whiskey waiting to grow up," Trisha jokes.
In the stills, the fermented liquid is then heated to a boiling point using the towering metal column stills, where alcohol vapors are captured and recondensed back into liquid, thus increasing the alcohol content.
"They have this system that helps force it because whiskey is required by law to come out at 80% [alcohol] or less and vodka is required to be 95% [alcohol] to be called vodka," Trisha explains.
2 Loons' flavored vodka line, dubbed Loon Lightning ($40/750 ml bottle) since it comes up just short of the 95% alcohol threshold at that stage of distilling, undergoes a third distillation that also infuses fruit like huckleberries, lemon, mint and other seasonal additions.
The high-proof alcohol is then slowly watered down and carbon filtered before bottling.
The huckleberry Loon Lightning has been a customer favorite. The 20 to 30 gallons of huckleberries that go into each batch are foraged locally, though poor harvest years can make it difficult to keep up with demand.
Greg also harvests rhubarb from neighbors' gardens, collecting around 350 pounds of the stalks for last year's batch of rhubarb Loon Lightning.
While more neutral spirits like vodka and gin can be bottled quickly, 2 Loons' whiskey, brandy and bourbon are each stored in charred American oak barrels for around three years. The aging process not only deepens the spirits' amber color, but enhances flavors and introduces new taste profiles from the wood.
Inspecting the barrels stacked along the distillery's walls, Greg points out stain marks, an indication of how spirits seep into the wood throughout the aging process. Rather than controlling the space's climate, the couple embrace natural fluctuations in temperature.
"I want the variable," Greg says. "Sometimes we'll keep a barrel on wheels, and I'll wheel it by the door when it's snowing or when it's 100 degrees out. Just as an experiment, it'll get wheeled around this whole place. And sometimes I'll just kick it to get a little agitation."
2 Loons also ages maple syrup ($20 for 12.7 ounces) in its used bourbon barrels to absorb the bourbon and wood flavors. The syrup is then pasteurized to remove alcohol, making it a great addition to cocktails or pancakes.
2 Loons currently only sells its products via the tasting room and nearby at the Lakehouse Bar & Grill in Loon Lake, so those interested in trying the Schwartzes' small-batch spirits will need to head there.
The couple dedicate entire months to producing one specific spirit at a time, reusing yeast beds in the fermentation tanks up to four times to maintain some consistency.
Don't get too attached to a specific product, however, as each batch is always a bit different due to changing variables in the yeast or barrels.
"That's where our clientele differ a little," Greg says. "They are fine with things changing. And I always tell them, 'If you really, really love it then you better stock up because it may never become again.'" ♦
2 Loons Distillery • 3950 Third Ave., Loon Lake • Hours vary seasonally • 2loonsdistillery.com • 509-998-0440
