Alaska Distilleries

USING LOCAL INGREDIENTS
Looking for a taste of local spirit? These Alaska distilleries bottle locally foraged, harvested, and farmed ingredients, or feature them in their tasting rooms.

Amalga Distillery (Juneau)
amalgadistillery.bigcartel.com | 907-209-2015
Foraged and harvested ingredients—including spruce tips, devil’s club, Labrador tea, and rhubarb — feature prominently in Amalga Distillery’s Juneauper Gin. Amalga also uses berries in special-edition gin, and is experimenting with bull kelp. But their biggest plan is to develop a malt house, a central location where Alaska-grown barley can be malted and distributed to distilleries throughout the state.

Anchorage Distillery (Anchorage)
anchoragedistillery.com | 907-561-2100
Anchorage Distillery partners closely with farmers in Delta Junction and the Mat-Su Valley to coordinate the crops of barley, rye, and wheat, ingredients that go into their bottled spirits, including award-winning Aurora Gin. They say that Alaska barley, in particular, imparts a sweetness to the final product.

Arctic Harvest (North Pole)
akgrownspirits.com | 907-460-1414
Arctic Harvest is truly a farm-to-bottle operation; they grow and malt their own grain, carrying out the non-farming aspects of their business year-round in a barn. They even use honey from family hives to produce their Alaska Honey ‘Shine un-aged whiskey. The farm, with an expansive patio area and an annual corn maze, has proven to be a great attraction for visitors.

Fairbanks Distilling Company (Fairbanks)
fairbanksdistilling.com | 907-452-5055
Despite the pandemic, Fairbanks Distilling Company still offers bottle service for vodka and hand sanitizer from a most evocative locale: the clerk’s office in the historic Old City Hall of downtown Fairbanks. Their super-smooth and highly decorated vodka is made from locally grown Yukon gold potatoes and spring water from Fox. In a normal year the distillery enjoys close relationships with local businesses that supply other ingredients, including coffee from a local roastery, for making their own non-alcoholic kahlua.

Hoarfrost Distilling (Fairbanks)
hoarfrost.vodka | 907-479-6128
If there were a crown for using copious amounts of Alaska-grown berries in their spirits, Hoarfrost Distilling would probably take it for their mind-boggling array of berry-flavored liqueurs. They also use fireweed flowers and locally grown honeyberries and sour cherries, and all of their liqueurs are derived from vodka created with Alaska-grown barley.

Port Chilkoot Distillery (Haines)
portchilkootdistillery.com | 907-917-2102
Port Chilkoot Distillery designed their Green Siren Absinthe around ingredients that grow well locally: wormwood, anise hyssop, lemon balm, and mint. They also use spruce tips in their award-winning 50 Fathoms Gin, and create mixers using locally grown or harvested ingredients like berries, Sitka roses, and sour cherries.

Skagway Spirits (Skagway)
skagwayspirits.com | 907-983-2040
The self-described “kitchen maid” of Skagway Spirits estimates that about 90 percent of their mixers start with locally harvested botanicals. Because the crops—from rhubarb to spruce tips, berries, and wild chamomile, also known as pineapple weed— vary seasonably, so do Skagway’s offerings. The distillery is also developing DIY cocktail kits, and offers dehydrated spruce tips in tea bags to re-create their much-loved spruce tip tea.

Ursa Major Distilling (Fairbanks/Ester)
ursamajordistilling.com | 907-347-8951
Housed just outside Fairbanks in Ester, Ursa Major Distilling uses Delta Junction barley as the base for most of their vodka and gin, and mixes barley and sugar to create their whiskey. You’ll find other locally grown and harvested ingredients here, too, like rhubarb — but the most fascinating by far is the 70-year-old Alaska sourdough starter from Lake Clark, which they use to ferment their rum.