This was the last stop on my whirlwind tour of most of the distilleries on Distillery Row (minus the 2 off to the west, and the 2 off to the south). Their normal price is $8 to taste 5 things (fully comped with the passport), so the passport is a particularly good deal here. However, it was another of the annoying ones where I really wanted to taste more than 5 things, as they had a decent selection that all looked interesting.
I started off with two of their aquavits - the aged version of their traditional one, which I thought was good but not amazing, and a more uniquely Portland-y one, "ole bjorkevoll", which was absolutely the best aquavit I've had, just ridiculously smooth and ridiculously flavorful (really wish I could've tried the aged version of that second one, but they were temporarily out, unfortunately).
I then tried two of their pepper vodkas - a habanero vodka that only had the slightest hint of pepper, more sweet than anything (I got hints of honey and vanilla), and a hotter one that did mostly taste like vodka and hot pepper, but wasn't overpoweringly hot. I thought both of these were, likewise, good but not amazing.
Finally, I tried their coffee vodka, which was absolutely fantastic - really tasted properly like drinking 80-proof coffee. Gorgeously smooth, without the sweetness - just this and a cream liqueur with an ice cube, would make a simple but fantastic "cocktail". One of the best coffee spirits I've had, and I've had some pretty good ones.
I also had to try one of the mini-cocktails here, because I couldn't possibly imagine aquavit and ginger beer being that great together, but they promised it was, and their aquavit was so good. Turns out yeah, it's pretty fantastic.
The place was pretty small, so if you came at a busier time, it'd probably be unpleasantly cramped. It's a bit hidden, though, so I don't know how frequently it gets that busy - I was there on a Saturday late afternoon, and it was fairly quiet, kinda relaxing, really. Got to chat with the owner a bit, too, so that was neat.
Note to self: if I'm ever back in Portland, this is one of the ones I have to come back to, so I can try the rest of the stuff I couldn't try this time. read more