Christian Krogstad, House Spirits Distillery

Christian grew up in Seattle and attended the University of Washington for a few years. He decided he wanted to be a chef and in 1986 started working at At the Lakeside on N Northlake Way on Lake Union. He was on a waiting list for culinary school, and wanted actual experience. He started as a dishwasher, then did dishes and food prep, then full-time prep, then trained for sauté. When he realized that unless you were the chef, you were assembling or reheating. He stayed at the restaurant for less than a year.

He began taking various jobs (Bucky messenger, Victoria Clipper, assistant sea kayak tour guide in British Columbia), working hard for 6-12 months, then traveling for 4-6. When home in Seattle, he enjoyed home brewing. After one trip, he decided to find a job brewing. Since craft brewing had taken off in Portland, he decided to move there in 1991. He found a job with McMenamins, where he stayed four years. He started washing kegs at Edgefield in Troutdale, trained as a brewer and moved to Hillsdale as the brewer where he stayed for two years. He became the McMenamins "cleaner." Each brewery had one employee. If something happened (a car accident, someone moved on, someone got fired), he would go in, figure out where in the brewing process they were, and complete the job. He moved back to Edgefield, and attended Siebel Institute of Technology, America's oldest brewing school, graduating in 1993. He returned to Edgefield as the head brewer.

He left to start Orchard Street Brewery in Bellingham with partners. It included a microbrewery and restaurant, and stayed in business from 1995-2001. It never really got out of the start-up phase, so they sold the business.

Christian moved to Oregon and managed a winery co-op, the Carlton Winemaker Studio, consisting of ten wineries. He was the liaison between owners and tenants, ensuring everyone had what they needed to keep it all going. While there, he began his plans for the distillery (2002). Even after the distillery began operating, he was still working at Carlton, the selling spirits on the weekends.

Christian, his wife Christina Porter, and a partner who Christian knew from McMenamins opened the distillery in 2004. They took over an existing facility in Corvalis and stayed for over a year. Eventually they outgrew it, and moved to Distillery Row in Portland, opening January 1, 2006. Their tasting room opened at the same time. They bought their partner out in 2010-2011, and three years ago brought on two new working partners and a small investor group for growth capital.

They plan to move into a new facility in Distillery Row in September 2014, between 1^st and Water avenues on SW Washington Street.

Updated  May 2014