OOLA has fast grown to be one of Seattle’s most popular micro-distilleries since they began barreling whiskey in 2010. Located in the heart of Capitol Hill, OOLA produces vodkas (citrus, chili pepper or rosemary), a grain-to-glass gin, Waitsburg bourbon whiskey, and out this fall: Waitsburg barrel finished gin. Kirby managed art galleries in Manhattan and Seattle prior to opening OOLA, keeping a small art collection in the distillery. In the same building, his wife runs a dance studio, while restaurants Sue and Zoe operate bars featuring OOLA spirits — a communal endeavor that invigorates the business.
Are you from Washington/Seattle originally?
No. I first passed through Seattle on a hitchhiking adventure starting in my home state of Minnesota while making my way to Alaska to work on a fishing boat. I was floored by the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and vowed to come back and explore further. I did just that and I’ve now lived here over 30 years.
What led you to open a distillery?
God only knows! [laughs] I was looking for a career change, moving away from an antique fine art gallery career where most of my life was spent on the road away from Seattle. Food and wine have been a passion my entire life, I wanted to find something that would incorporate these passions and allow me to travel just a bit less. I realized that the small scale distilling industry was just getting beginning so the idea of “getting in on the ground floor” of something new but also with a deep history was intriguing. Then I became obsessed — I was truly hooked. I read all I could on the subject of distilling and took every workshop offered, traveling around the country visiting distilleries (back when distilleries were a bit more open to visitors!) Soon I made a business plan and jumped in with both feet. There happened to be a large vacant building a block and a half from my house that was a perfect site. I signed a long lease, sublet part of the space to two fantastic restaurants with great bar programs, and it all came together.
How do you get your spirits into cocktail bars in Seattle and around the country? What advice would you give to distillers looking to get their spirits into bars?
In Seattle, we’re blessed with a very vibrant and innovative cocktail scene. Our approach is not to force the sale of a product, but to find bars that make sense for our products, that have a similar approach to spirits. We view relationships with bars as a partnership. We educate ourselves on what sort of cocktail program a bar is interested in and, in turn, educate the bars on our spirits. We try to create win-win scenarios with bars — an arrangement that will to enrich what we both are trying to accomplish. You have to be respectful of bars, their people, and their time. Creating a specialty cocktail is something that is cool for everyone, and the mixologist and distillery both play an equally important role — back to the partnership idea.
How have you grown your brand?
Part of growing our brand was to choose to open in a vibrant urban center of Seattle — Capitol Hill. We are in the middle of a cocktail scene that is on fire. We started off self-distributing and that allowed us to create a personal contact with many bars and retailers. Once we were up to 260 accounts, we signed with a distributor, Click, and moved statewide. Soon after we headed into other states. So much depends on personal relationships. Getting someone to recommend you is legions beyond a cold call. Entering competitions and winning a few gold and silver medals also helped the brand be noticed on those crowded shelves. Now we’re in over 400 accounts in Washington, in 12 other states, plus Washington DC, and we just shipped to Australia/New Zealand.
What spirits are exciting you most right now? Or, if you prefer, what is exciting you most about the current climate for spirits and cocktails?
Barrel aging is currently the most fascinating thing for me right now. Enjoying the magic that happens in a barrel and trying to control the results – that’s just damn cool. Current barrel projects include rye, the bourbon we’ve been doing, one other whiskey, gin, and various brandies. Actually, it is complex being a distillery owner in addition to being the distiller. Wearing both hats, I’m very aware that each spirit is an aesthetic and creative pursuit as well as a business one. These two arenas are not always in synch. Some of our brandy trials turned out a beautiful product, but the economics of it made them less viable to release commercially. It’s more exciting when a product falls into place on both fronts, like our Barrel Finished Gin. This gin is the same spirit we bottle as our flagship gin but by aging it in our involved proprietary barrel program, we transformed it into something else entirely. This is one trial that will make it to market. Those sorts of transformations are really exciting. Again, back to barrels: managing the program and the magic that can come from them, that’s top of the passion list these days.
