
It all started with the 1-gallon copper still his son gave him as a retirement gift. Challenge accepted! Charles rummaged through the kitchen cabinets, found some molasses and a week later had rum. The locavore movement was in full swing and Charles went in search of more local ingredients. Orcas Island was historically known for its apple orchards. Friends helped identify the remnants of these heirloom orchards and Charles was soon picking, enlisting family and friends to work the hand-crank press and producing cider. A retirement hobby was born.
In 2014, Orcas Island Distillery joined the early ranks of craft distilling in Washington State. Charles etched the TTB-approved serial number into a 5-gallon still and went in search of colleagues and community to learn more about his newest adventure. He soon found Bill Owens and ADI. Bill sent him books, toured him around Northern California distilleries, invited him to seminars and soon had him writing stories for Distiller. In 2016, Orcas Island Distillery Eau de Vie Apple Brandy won the ADI Gold and Best in Category. The story of that day is one Charles would tell for the rest of his life.
The medals accumulated. ADI awarded a Silver to the Ferry Dock Gin in 2017, and a Gold and Best in Category in 2021. The San Francisco World Spirits Competition awarded the gin a Gold in 2022. The apple brandy won Gold from SF in 2021 and Silver from ADI and SF in 2022. The first release of the American Single Malt won ADI Gold and Best in Category in 2019; Double Gold from SF in 2021 and 2022 and Gold in 2023.
Charles didn’t set out to make spirits. With a graduate degree in television journalism from UC Berkeley, he was hired by 60 Minutes as a researcher, worked in Bay Area television, and started his production company which pioneered adventure sports programming on ESPN, Discovery UK among other networks.
After years in front of the camera, he retired to his beloved home on Orcas Island. The family, already involved with apple harvesting, followed in March 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. Spirit production was halted to produce hand sanitizer. The grandchildren inventoried supplies: corks, bottles, labels were recorded on spreadsheets; calculating the volume of a barrel served as a math lesson.
A plan to increase production was hatched. The company expanded the ownership group to include Charles’s wife, Carie DeRuiter, son Morgan West and daughter-in-law Diane West. Two stills grew to three. The distillery was redesigned, and a tasting room was opened. Charles continued to work daily as the master distiller, leading the development of small-batch rye and single malt using experimental barleys particularly suited to the marine climate in the Pacific Northwest.
Charles was passionate about his final entrepreneurial adventure. “I love working with local fruits, with the local agricultural community. And I love all the elements involved in aging spirits—how the tannins and vanillins come into equilibrium over time. They find a way, they vibrate. There’s almost a song to it.”
Orcas Island Distillery will continue to sing that song, sharing Charles’s vision of craft distilling—and the fruits of his labor—into the future.
