Current News From Around The Distillery
Another 4th Celebration
July 4th, 2025 – Happy Birthday USA! Yet another 4th of July celebration in Fairbanks. Our rum label portrays (possibly the 1st or surely one of the 1st) 4th of July celebration in early downtown. That’s the SS Lavelle Young pulling up to the dock that originally brought our founder ET Barnette here.
Bottling Vodka
June 22, 2025 – Bottling crew getten’er done! So many bottles of vodka! What a great volunteer crew though: Mark & Ann Rippy, Eva Zamzow, Sarah McGowan, Lori Neufeld, & Pat Levy.
Expanded Hours
June 25, 2025 – As we have been advertising, our open hours will be expanding to: Wednesday thru Friday 11am till 9pm. Get out and enjoy our deck for the summer!
1/2 Bottles, Where Are You?
June 23, 2025 – My bottle supplier, Tricor Braun, was wrong about my order arriving in the US and they have apologized. Supposidly, they are on the next ship from Italy. As mentioned earlier, supply lines are in chaos due to tariffs. I have no idea when my bottles will arrive in the US??? We still have plenty of rum half bottles, so this is just effecting the gin (so far).
Midnight Sun Festival
June 21, 2025 – Stop on by for a cool handcrafted cocktail, mocktail, hoptail, or soda and enjoy our Cushman St deck to people watch or just take a load off and enjoy a light snack with your cool drink. Remember, next week we move to expanded summer hours: Wednesday – Friday 11am-9pm & Sat. noon-9pm. Cheers!
Blending Vodka
June 15 – New batch of vodka coming up! This is the step before bottling where we blend it down from that lip burning 190+ proof to the drinkable and very delicious 80 proof award winning 68 Below potato vodka. Ahhh, Fox Spring water & Yukon Gold potatoes, only the best! Thank you Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge Chef’s Garden folks for your hardwork producing delicious potatoes for your guests and to help us produce the most delicious and most awarded spirit made in Alaska. This is truly an amazing collaboration between two local businesses. Our 68 Below is a must try locally produced spirit that will convince you that vodka really can be a good sipping spirit!
Happy Father's Day Dad!
June 15, 2025 – Every Father’s Day we always think of our Dad’s. I surely miss mine and wish that he was still with us. He was the person that I could always talk with and he always had good advice that was mixed with humor. When I was 7 yrs old and faked that I was running away from home (it was night and we lived across from a swamp in NC – I had gone out the front door and ran around to the back and hid under my parents bed). It was my Dad that grabbed the shotgun (for snakes) and went out looking for me. My Mom sent me out to find him!
Bottle Resupply On Its Way...
May 31, 2025 – Just found out that our pallet order of 1620 half bottles has arrived in the US from Europe and is on its way to Chicago via rail. It was quite a relief to hear that it was not hit with a crazy 145% tariff. Happy our bottles come from Europe and not China at the moment. Hard to say what’s going to happen with supply lines though. Small businesses are being hit with mega supply line instability these days. As businesses costs change, product prices will have to adjust. So far, no price increases planned from us.
New Website (FINALLY) Goes Live!
May 30, 2025 – Apologies for the long delay in going from a single temporary one-page website to this more involved one. I had to find the time, get motivated, and then learn WordPress to make this happen… now, I need to get back to work on distillery production! If only I could jet over to Amsterdam and meet my buddy Neal at WF’s for a kopstoot!
Memorial Day Weekend
May 24, 2025 – Memorial Day weekend is here and I always like to pull out my Uncle Aby’s WWI helmet, which is always on display at the distillery. While he did not die in WWI, millions did. A good place to see the effects of WWI is at Ypres, Belgium. If you visit, stay for the Last Post, which happens every evening at 8pm sharp at the Menin Gate. The Menin Gate memorializes the 54,395 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient and were never found again. It is estimated that over 1 million soldiers lost their lives in this 10 km area. Mind boggling.
Spring Is Upon Us!
May 15, 2025 – The snow is quickly leaving and spring seems to be here. That means that we have our fingers crossed for no late season snow showers!