Dryfly Distilling. Creating Craft Spirits from the Abundant Resources of Spokane Washington

Don Poffenroth is our guest for this episode.

Don launched Dryfly in 2007 and Dryfly was the first distillery to open in Washington State since prohibition.

Our conversation took place in the event area of Dryfly’s new distillery location. The 24,000 Sq Ft location will allow Don and his team to move than 10x production over the next several months. The new location will feature a tasting room, full-service restaurant, corporate offices, and an event space.

Don shares the story of Dryfly and how it still manages to locally source ingredients for their award winning spirits. Don shares his journey as a distiller and how the company has adapted through the years. Can you imagine opening a distillery and leaving your corporate life behind? Don did just that.

Did you know that canned cocktails are a thing? I must admit that this trend is one that I have not explored. Don shares how he expects his “On the Fly” cocktails to continue to grow and be available in more and more locations throughout Washington State and the rest of the country.

Make sure you listen to this episode if you are a craft distilling fan or just curious how this Spokane business is making a difference in Washington State.

Check out Dryfly Distilling Here. (over 21 years of age)

Don Poffenroth DryFly Distilling Episode Transcript

Don Poffenroth [00:00:00]:
Spent time with Chris, and it was like, well, here’s the still and there’s stuff in there, and there’s where you turn it on. I’ve got classes I’ll see you in four hours.

Todd Phillips [00:00:25]:
Welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. Here’s your host, Scott Cowan.

So I am sitting here today in Dryfly Distilling in Spokane. I’m up in their tasting room. Well, am I in the tasting room? You’re in

Don Poffenroth [00:00:39]:
the event space by yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:00:40]:
Event space. Yep. I’m with Don Poffen Poffenroth. He told me to sound it out, but I butchered it. But Don is the founder of Dryfly Distilling. Don, thanks for making this happen.

Don Poffenroth [00:00:50]:
No. My pleasure. Why don’t

Scott Cowan [00:00:52]:
you tell us about Dryfly first?

Don Poffenroth [00:00:54]:
Dryfly, started in, the the entire process started in 02/2006. We really started producing in 02/2007. And, we’re at that time, we’re the twentieth or twenty first small distillery in The US. So

Scott Cowan [00:01:11]:
Oh.

Don Poffenroth [00:01:11]:
It was an incredibly small industry back then. Everybody knew everybody. We all talked on the phone because we were all fighting the same battles. And, really, the distilling part of that came out of a simple conversation when I was searching for something to do kind of post my primary career, and decided, that that being in the alcohol industry sounded like fun, being an avid consumer. And originally, you know, honestly looked at beer, and this was, you know, in 02/2006 when everyone was saying, no. Craft beer has grown all it will grow, which was the stupidest statement ever, in hindsight. But but I was able to get connected with, Nick Haas from Christian Karl. And Christian Karl is the oldest continuous steel manufacturer in the world.

Don Poffenroth [00:01:59]:
Oh. They make, arguably the best equipment that’s made in the world. K. So that connection kind of started putting the dots together that, this this arena of small distilling even existed and was allowed by, US Law and and all those other kinds of things. So, that was really the primary start. Spent some time, in Michigan with, Chris Berglund, who at that time was the godfather of small distilling in this country. Unfortunately, Chris passed a few years ago, but he was a chemical engineering, dean at, Michigan State and was given kind of the task of helping fruit farmers at that time, figure out what to do with cold fruit, and distillation was the answer. So Chris was very well connected with the folks at Carl, and that gave me a place to go play on a still.

Don Poffenroth [00:02:48]:
Like, I can remember the first time I spent time with Chris, and it was like, well, here’s the still, and there’s stuff in there, and there’s where you turn it on. I’ve got classes I’ll see in four hours. So it was a trial by fire for sure. But,

Scott Cowan [00:03:02]:
So I gotta ask, that first batch.

Don Poffenroth [00:03:04]:
Yeah. Here or there?

Scott Cowan [00:03:06]:
There. That first bat that first day, when

Don Poffenroth [00:03:08]:
I turned things on and and, you know, luckily, had done a little bit of reading. I’m not so sure that we didn’t dump it Don the drain when it was done, but I made the still work. So You

Scott Cowan [00:03:17]:
made the still work? Yeah.

Don Poffenroth [00:03:18]:
Okay. Maybe not effectively, but it probably got better at it as I as I

Scott Cowan [00:03:21]:
went on. Got better.

Don Poffenroth [00:03:23]:
But I really didn’t spend any time just stealing, you know, from a manufacturing standpoint or on any scale until we literally put the equipment in here.

And so what we relied upon was, that we had, the raw material source we in any raw material we use in this facility has grown within 30 miles of here. So, we’re we’re hyper agricultural. So that’s super important to us. We’re farmer direct. There’s no middleman in that equation, and we deal with the farmers directly. And and that just allows us to really narrow down what we want and don’t want. In in our primary farm, we’ve used since day one.

Don Poffenroth [00:03:58]:
So Okay. A great fifteen year relationship. So we had the raw materials we trusted. We had I I came out of the food industry on the marketing side, so we we had, at least in our mind, the ability to take a product to market and figure out how that side of the equation worked. We were missing the middle gap, which is how do you connect those two Don, and we just relied on Christian Carl, the oldest company in that business. So and a 70 years old, if they haven’t figured it out, no one has.

Scott Cowan [00:04:27]:
So they helped you connect those Don?

Don Poffenroth [00:04:31]:
They did. I mean, you know, they created a set of equipment. I often refer to it as distilling for dummies. Right? So we we dumbed it down and made it as simple as possible. K. Our first set of equipment was incredibly flexible. It had the ability to do whatever we wanted it to Don. And then it just became dialing down process.

Don Poffenroth [00:04:48]:
And and, I I can remember sitting with the guys from Germany or talking to them on the phone, and and I would go, well, what do I do when I get here? And they go, well, you have four choices. You know? You should try all four of them. And at that particular juncture, I’m like, you guys, I don’t have time to try four things. Then they’re like, well, then just pick one and do it. So that’s kinda how we survive.

Scott Cowan [00:05:06]:
We So what

Don Poffenroth [00:05:07]:
do you pathway.

Scott Cowan [00:05:08]:
What what are the four help me out here because I know nothing but

Don Poffenroth [00:05:11]:
Well, there were four decisions at every single corner. Right? So, I mean, as you develop kind of this process of distilling, I guess you have to determine what the driving factors are. And for us, they were a couple of things. The local raw material thing was absolutely crucial. So we were going to make that work. And, that that maybe is best reflected in the fact that we make gin from things we can buy in the state of Washington.

Scott Cowan [00:05:34]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:05:35]:
Right? So we didn’t, attack a gin recipe based upon what we thought a world worldly gin should be. We made a gin because we wanted to make a Washington gin, and and finding those raw materials in our area became important. And then I think we were fortunate that we had good palates, and we had the ability to taste things. So we would make things that we thought tasted well.

Scott Cowan [00:05:59]:
Okay. So what was the first product you guys? Well, let’s go ahead. I asked you a question, and you you gave me a sub answer. So I asked you about your first still.

Don Poffenroth [00:06:08]:
I’m a good sub answer guy.

Scott Cowan [00:06:09]:
How about the first time you fired the still up? Here in Washington. What what did you guys Well, I

Don Poffenroth [00:06:13]:
was like, yeah. I had the guys from, I had the guys from Germany here with us.

Scott Cowan [00:06:17]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:06:18]:
And after a long day of distilling, at that at that time, Northern Lights Brewing, which has changed names and come under different ownership. But back in the original days of Northern Lights and Mark Erwin, we had a brewery next door. So we basically got some subpar beer from them. That became our experimental stuff before we even started mashing ourselves. So we had a ready source of fluid to distill, for lack of better terminology. So the first thing we really learned is how to purify that and basically make a 90 proofs. So make a base for vodka.

Scott Cowan [00:06:50]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:06:51]:
So that really became our first thing. And that’s fairly mechanical, meaning that you’re you’re using the still to achieve an objective. You’re still making some cuts in that distillate, to hit a flavor profile, definitely. But that’s what we learned to do initially was to make high proof alcohol. And then we spurred, that that leads into vodka, and then that led into gin. Those were our first two items. We didn’t make whiskey for maybe nine or ten months in all honesty because whiskey is a much more difficult thing to make. There are way more factors involved.

Don Poffenroth [00:07:22]:
You’re taking distillate at a way lower level. Your cuts become more critical. So that was maybe, you know, the two zero one level class. The one zero one level, we handled vodka and gin, got those out in the marketplace, and then jumped into whiskey. And then made whiskey and sat on it for a number of years before we were able to release it.

Scott Cowan [00:07:41]:
Well well, yeah, that’s some of it, though. Right? Because gin and vodka don’t have to be aged. And whiskey, bourbons, and all that, we age them. Your vision, you you got you said you wanted to get in you got decided to get into distilling. What did you wanna make? Were are you a vodka guy? Or you a Oh,

Don Poffenroth [00:07:57]:
we wanted to make whiskey.

Scott Cowan [00:07:58]:
You’re I mean, so whiskey was the goal.

Don Poffenroth [00:08:00]:
That that was always the primary objective. Right? That that is there is way more art in, in making a whiskey. There are way more decisions. There’s way more factors to, to play within that in that scenario. That being said, the the thing that we became immediately known for and and we are fortunate. Maybe our second year in in business, we won the largest competition in the world, which is a San Francisco Spirit competition, held every year in California. So it’s the largest, international competition of spirits. We won the vodka category.

Don Poffenroth [00:08:35]:
So we not only Wow. Won best vodka, we won the entire category, which a small distiller had never done. So it was the very first time any small manufacturer and at that time, as we were making, you know, 5,000 cases a year, it was not a big thing

Scott Cowan [00:08:51]:
No.

Don Poffenroth [00:08:52]:
To be recognized at that level. And we were told, that we want it via an email. This was this was even before text messages, I think. We were told in an email, and I I remember the phone calls we had. At that time, there were only three of us here. And we were like, somebody is playing with us right now. Somebody’s yanking our chain. Right.

Don Poffenroth [00:09:12]:
You know? So we just basically called BS on it and, sent the email back and said, yeah. You guys are super funny. You know? Then the next by month that was on a Sunday. By Monday, people were calling us, so it it was the real deal.

Scott Cowan [00:09:26]:
And what did that do for the company?

Don Poffenroth [00:09:29]:
I I think it, it gave some validation to the process and what we were doing and and what our ethos was, which was to, again, stay local and be who we are and and stay in our zone. And and, it it, you know, it verified that that was the correct pathway. Probably got us some distribution, you know, in the grand spectrum of things. I think that that’s always a growing process, but probably got us a little bit of attention. It’s it’s not like winning an award automatically makes everything easy. It just opens a few doorways. And so it opens some doorways we could walk through.

Scott Cowan [00:10:02]:
So I have a question, and I love the fact that you’re doing everything Washington State because that’s that’s what we’re all about. But this is almost I’m I’m gonna phrase it in a negative way. Is your product limited because you’re only using stuff within 30 mile? I what I’m saying is, like Yeah.

Don Poffenroth [00:10:18]:
I I think it’s a great question. Yeah. I will I will argue with you that, the exact opposite is opposite is true, and more people should be using Washington grain.

Scott Cowan [00:10:27]:
Okay. So okay. I know.

Don Poffenroth [00:10:28]:
Right. So I think you can almost in my mind, I take almost a terroir approach to grain, meaning that I care where it comes from. And and we learned this early in our life. When we first originally bought grain, we bought it from a grain coop. So the grain that we would get, although it was a single variety and maybe even a single seed variety, although I don’t think it was that specific, would change. And what I learned in spending time with that coop and going to their meetings and speaking to the farmers is that I needed to buy from a single farmer. Right? Okay. And I took the wave, the variance out of having grain that came from multiple pieces of property, different moisture contents, different protein contents.

Don Poffenroth [00:11:08]:
So batch to batch, there were some inconsistencies that were difficult to wrangle. By going to one farmer, telling him what I needed, and he could make decisions when he was harvesting then

Scott Cowan [00:11:18]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:11:18]:
To put specific grain in a specific silo for me, and it kept us way more consistent.

Scott Cowan [00:11:23]:
That’s okay. So that’s really kinda fascinating. Because what I’m not and not that I’m aware of much in the world, but I’m not aware that Washington has a a a reputation for wheat or grain in general. I gotcha. Well, I Yeah. I’m a city kid from the West Side. So Yeah. We we grow some

Don Poffenroth [00:11:38]:
of that. In soft white winter, we we are a world leader. Okay. So Okay. In soft white winter, wheat is, a small amount is used in bread. It’s used in things like, angel food cake and pastries, in in making great vodka, amongst other things. But, I mean, the the variety of grain that we use is Madsen. It was developed at WSU in the nineteen forties, if I’m not mistaken.

Don Poffenroth [00:12:04]:
That seed variety still exists. That’s very uncommon. Usually, a seed variety only lasts a certain amount of time, becomes susceptible to some kind of thing environmentally, and it goes away. But this seed variety is pretty much hung in there for a long time, and it’s just because it was developed for the land Don the land, and I think that makes a difference.

Scott Cowan [00:12:22]:
So then you can call up the farmer, and they’re a partner, if you will. They’re not just a a supplier.

Don Poffenroth [00:12:29]:
Oh, yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:12:29]:
They’re a partner.

Don Poffenroth [00:12:30]:
Part of our family.

Scott Cowan [00:12:31]:
Right. So you can say whatever technical thing you’re asking for, and they they can make a business decision, but they know you.

Don Poffenroth [00:12:39]:
Yeah. I I I probably will say that, they make the technical decisions and help lead me. I mean, they know their grain. They have it analyzed. And we were faced with a really good example of that this year. The 02/2021 crop from a distilling perspective was horrible.

Scott Cowan [00:12:56]:
Why is that?

Don Poffenroth [00:12:57]:
Meaning we didn’t have a lot of rain. It was super dry. It was a hot year, that made a smaller grain kernel, but, bushel yields were down. Protein levels were up, and protein for us is the opposite end of the equation. We want the wheat to have more starch content because we can convert the starch to sugar and therefore make alcohol. So a bunch of protein, is not kind to our system.

Scott Cowan [00:13:20]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:13:21]:
So we’re not buying any twenty twenty one grain. So we had we had enough twenty twenty grain we siloed, with the help of our farmer to hold on to enough volume to get us through. So we’ll pop back in the market in 2022.

Scott Cowan [00:13:34]:
So just to to help me wrap my brain around this, how much how many bushels of grain are we talking about here?

Don Poffenroth [00:13:41]:
We use about a million pounds of grain a year.

Scott Cowan [00:13:43]:
A million?

Don Poffenroth [00:13:44]:
Yeah. It sounds like a lot. It’s not.

Scott Cowan [00:13:47]:
Oh, it does sound like a lot.

Don Poffenroth [00:13:48]:
Yeah. Just sounds like a big number. But, I mean, it is for our particular farmer, it might be 12% of his wheat crop per vine. So, maybe it’s consequential to him, mainly because I I not only am paying him for the grain, so I I let him float on market price. So if the wheat price goes up, he gets to take advantage of that with me. But in return, he’s siloing on the property. He he protects us. So, you know, at the end of the day, I I don’t argue wheat prices.

Scott Cowan [00:14:18]:
Okay. So you’re not checking the commodity market every day, Clay?

Don Poffenroth [00:14:21]:
I don’t need to. I I Don the farmer to be successful. I want his family farm, which is now a hundred and sixteen hundred years from now.

Scott Cowan [00:14:28]:
Okay. So million pounds a week. That see, from the outside looking in, that sounds like a lot. That does. That sounds like a lot. To you, you’re like, okay. Yeah.

Don Poffenroth [00:14:36]:
Because It’s nothing.

Scott Cowan [00:14:37]:
But it does sound like a lot. Alright. Because I love this this whole so well, I’m gonna come back to something you said about gin based on Washington products. What does that look? I I am not a

Don Poffenroth [00:14:52]:
So when we step into that process. Right? So and I will throw in caveat on there. We we would love to buy juniper berries in the state of Washington, and there are juniper berries that grow wildly in the state. There is no one currently that has FDA authorization to pack juniper berries. Right? And we have to have point of origin sourcing on all of the raw materials we use. It’s an FDA requirement in case someone makes nuclear juniper berries or something, I guess. So although you and I could go out and pick juniper berries right now, and and we could theoretically make gin out of them, we can’t do that. You can’t just pull stuff out of your backyard

Scott Cowan [00:15:27]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:15:28]:
When you’re a manufacturer. So our juniper berries currently come from Oregon. Hey. What’s the of the items we pick. So we have coriander, apple, lavender, mint, and hops are all from the state. So what we did is we went to the Washington State Department of Agriculture, sourced a list of things grown in the state of Washington, contacted farmers, had them send us samples, and then worked that way to develop our gin recipe Versus saying this is the gin we wanna make, we kinda came at it another way. And in what in 02/2007 when we started that, it was weird gin. By 02/2012 or ’13, this new category had been created, which was called American style gin, which was gin that geographically reflects where it’s from.

Don Poffenroth [00:16:14]:
Okay. So it kinda became its own category. Don not that we had anything to do with that other than the fact we led the pack kind of on being that having that approach. Alright.

Scott Cowan [00:16:26]:
Okay. I’m I’m looking at the the back bar, and I’m seeing several bottles back there. What is the light pink bottle?

Don Poffenroth [00:16:38]:
Oh, it’s probably a huckleberry lemonade or a huckleberry vodka, I mean.

Scott Cowan [00:16:42]:
Huckleberry vodka. Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:16:44]:
Interesting thing. There’s a there’s a ton of huckleberry vodkas in the marketplace, and they’re all clear. And I don’t know if you’ve ever picked huckleberries. I have. Huckleberries are not clear.

Scott Cowan [00:16:52]:
They’re not clear.

Don Poffenroth [00:16:53]:
Your fingers turn purple.

Scott Cowan [00:16:54]:
Yes. They do.

Don Poffenroth [00:16:55]:
So you’d think if there was huckleberry in there, there’d probably be some color. Right? Perhaps. I’ll just say that that’s That’s a good Our our approach, we actually use huckleberries to flavor our huckleberry product. Right. We don’t use huckleberry flavor. Okay. We were very fortunate early in our career to have, we used to do a lot of distilling classes in here because we were an early adapter Don and, and we got approached right away, people coming in and say, well, I wanna come distill in your distillery. And we’re like, well, listen.

Don Poffenroth [00:17:23]:
We’ve spent a lot of time and money trying to figure this out. You can do that, but you gotta come take a class. Don and we probably help 25 or 50 small distilleries across the country get open.

Scott Cowan [00:17:34]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:17:34]:
And, the and the theory always was, I I call it the rising tide theory. Right?

Scott Cowan [00:17:39]:
Right.

Don Poffenroth [00:17:39]:
Set a standard, and, hopefully, everyone will follow. And and, in that group, we had someone come from a flavoring house, a a big flavoring house. And they were really trying to learn and understand about the distilling industry. We consequently learned a lot about flavoring, and and those became things we didn’t wanna do. And it was, had nothing to do with this wonderful person who came and spent time with us that we’ve talked to again and again on different projects and and helping other people out. But we decided we weren’t a flavoring company. We’re we’re, if we say we make a product with huckleberry, you’d they can be damn well sure there’s gonna be huckleberries in there.

Scott Cowan [00:18:20]:
Alright. So one other one bottle removed is kind of a a yellow?

Don Poffenroth [00:18:26]:
So that’s a barrel aged gin. So we we kind of were one of the first distilleries, if not the first. Being being early in this industry, there’s a ton of us that will claim have Don something for the first time. Right? I mean, and we have a a lot of those that that we did as well. And, we don’t really talk about that a whole lot, but, barrel aged gin, listen, was a complete and total mistake. We had some gin, and, we weren’t ready to bottle it. There was a shortage of bottles, I think, at that particular time. So we threw it in a barrel.

Don Poffenroth [00:18:57]:
And we literally forgot about it for multiple years, two years, I think. Oh. And then came back and said, well, we had to do something with that and pulled it out and said, wow. That’s pretty good. We probably should keep making it.

Scott Cowan [00:19:10]:
So that was a I love asking the question. Like, I love talking about mistakes. Like, you I thought this would be a great idea. So you just kind of just answered my one of my questions is you threw it in a barrel. Yeah.

Don Poffenroth [00:19:21]:
We threw it in a barrel. Now we do barrelless gin. And from the historically, from a historical standpoint, half of gin was put in a barrel when gin was originally made. So it was nothing new.

Scott Cowan [00:19:31]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:19:31]:
Just no one in this country had done it. Everyone had believed that, you know, the only kind of gin you could sell were these big juniper bomb gins that, you know, everyone makes a martini with, and they wanna hear that or feel that, taste it.

Scott Cowan [00:19:43]:
Uh-huh.

Don Poffenroth [00:19:44]:
You know, we have the philosophy that that, there can be other flavors in the category. It’s okay.

Scott Cowan [00:19:52]:
What type of barrel is the barrel aged gin?

Don Poffenroth [00:19:54]:
It’s one of our own whiskey barrels, so it’s second use.

Scott Cowan [00:19:56]:
It’s a second use whiskey barrel? Okay. Yeah.

Don Poffenroth [00:19:58]:
The good thing about gin, there’s no criteria on what that barrel has to be, so we could do whatever we wanted to at the end of the day.

Scott Cowan [00:20:03]:
And how much of the the the barrel I mean, I’m looking at that, and, like, it doesn’t look like gin. No. So how much floor

Don Poffenroth [00:20:11]:
Well, it doesn’t look like gin. Well,

Scott Cowan [00:20:17]:
okay. Let’s wrap our head around that. It it doesn’t look like gin that of my

Don Poffenroth [00:20:22]:
Doesn’t look like regular gin.

Scott Cowan [00:20:24]:
Yeah. And I’m not like I said, I’m not a gin person. But how much does the barrel impact the flavor of that in your opinion?

Don Poffenroth [00:20:32]:
I think quite a bit. So, we use all American oak barrels when new American oak, and it’s really a criteria of American whiskey. So it’s not like we have a heck of a lot of choice, to be honest with

Scott Cowan [00:20:43]:
you. Right.

Don Poffenroth [00:20:47]:
We put, a incredibly narrow band of distillate in our barrel, meaning that we don’t put, we don’t take yield into consideration when we barrel whiskey. And what I mean by that is, we put a much finer distillate in the barrel than is typically put in a whiskey barrel. Typically, the distillate is rougher than you put in a whiskey barrel. Some of those rough things over time will become wonderful. So putting that rough distillate in a barrel sometimes gives you flavor profiles that you want. Okay. The downside of that equation is it takes a lot more time for those to temper down. So by putting a softer distillate in the barrel, you typically reduce the aging period.

Don Poffenroth [00:21:32]:
So, you know, maybe a two year, three year whiskey really is like the other guys’ four or five year whiskey, just because the barrel has not had to do any cleaning. It can add character. It doesn’t need to fix flaws in the distillate.

Scott Cowan [00:21:49]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:21:50]:
That that being said, we make kind of both now. We make some rougher distillate, wider band, and we still make some narrow band, products. And and, some things will take to a longer age and some things don’t. Being 15 years old, you know, we have eleven, twelve year old whiskey now that we can sell if we want to. And and, you know, we’re still learning every day about what happens in a barrel, and and that’s the fun part of what we’re doing now. There’s still things to learn every day.

Scott Cowan [00:22:17]:
Well, this doesn’t like, what happens in the barrel is also impacted by where the barrel is as far as the temperature of the room and that the barrel’s sitting in and things like that?

Don Poffenroth [00:22:26]:
Yeah. We we’ve always basically barrel aged at an ambient room temperature. And, the last three or four years, we’ve moved to off-site barrel storage. So that’s, non temperature controlled.

Scott Cowan [00:22:38]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:22:39]:
So we’re getting more moved in in the barrel, and the flavors that are coming out of the barrel are better.

Scott Cowan [00:22:44]:
Oh, okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:22:45]:
In a room that’s basically 60 degrees all the time Fahrenheit or 55 degrees Fahrenheit is a fairly steady thing, meaning it’s more of a linear, aging process. The the process when you have heat and cold in a building requires you to rotate barrel inventory a little bit to kinda mellow things out and even them out for sure. But, yeah, it’s all good. It’s all new things to learn.

Scott Cowan [00:23:09]:
Well, that’s that’s the kind of a threat I’m seeing here is that you’re you’re you’re constantly learning stuff. So this new space that we’re sitting in, how many square feet?

Don Poffenroth [00:23:17]:
16,000 square feet of floor space, and we added a 3,000 square foot mezzanine. So it’s about 19,000 feet. We have a 14,000 foot basement, beneath us, which is a big thing for us. We came out of a four or 5,000 square foot building, and a 4,000 square foot external, warehouse. So, we we have more than doubled our size. And and what really, what this allowed us to do is, a, spread things out and get all of our functions so they each had their own space so they worked on top of each other Right. Which makes it more efficient. B, in the thirteen years or fourteen years we were at our other building, we learned all the things that we would do if we would build a new building, and we did them here.

Don Poffenroth [00:24:00]:
So efficiency things like having the correct flooring and draining systems, and We have a wastewater management system here, and we the way we deal with water and every input output thing was dialed in here. K. And then this is, you know, right out of the gate, four times our capacity that we had. So gives us some growth. The building’s designed to handle 10 times our original capacity. So, yeah, we’re ready to go.

Scott Cowan [00:24:29]:
So this space was the old Spokesman Review? It

Don Poffenroth [00:24:32]:
was the Spokesman Review print press. So in in this particular, spot, we printed color circulars for the most part.

Scott Cowan [00:24:39]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:24:39]:
And, maybe some Sunday ads that you would see. So that was what was done in this part of the building. And this building was done 1999, ‘2 thousand, somewhere around there. So it’s not very old.

Scott Cowan [00:24:49]:
K.

Don Poffenroth [00:24:49]:
It’s a beautiful building. It’s on the corner of Monroe And Riverside in Spokane, which is arguably one of the top corners there is in in Spokane. So incredibly visible, to have our sign on on this building is, it is is a pretty special thing.

Scott Cowan [00:25:06]:
Alright. We’re gonna come back to that. Let’s go back to when you started. How was Dryfly received in Spokane?

Don Poffenroth [00:25:16]:
We were we were incredibly fortunate. We we were the first, distillery since prohibition in the state of Washington. So and at that time, Washington was not a was a state run system. Right? So it was a little bit of, different, thing going on. So I can remember going in front of the Washington liquor board. Like, we would, and the liquor boards was four or five people. Literally, you sat in front of those four or five people. Told them what you were gonna do.

Don Poffenroth [00:25:40]:
You had an appointment for eleven minutes. Eleven minutes. Eleven minute, section. So we went in with our distributor from the state and walked into this meeting that was supposed to last last eleven minutes. We were there for an hour and a half because the liquor board was enamored to try to learn what was happening in this sector, what was going on. And since we were the first purple people they gotta talk to, they wanted to understand what our business was and what we thought was gonna happen. And then they ultimately made the decision of putting you in those stores or not. And there were 300 stores in the state of Washington at that time.

Don Poffenroth [00:26:14]:
Some of those were contract stores. Some of them were state run stores. So I think we got into a 50 or a 60 stores as a result of that thing. So we went from, doing our first delivery to the state of Washington, which at that time had this, you know, multi hundred thousand square foot robotic automated warehouse, and we delivered 11 cases in the back of my pickup truck, to that beautiful warehouse.

Scott Cowan [00:26:41]:
Now where where where was this warehouse at?

Don Poffenroth [00:26:43]:
For, down by where, Costco is kind of Here?

Scott Cowan [00:26:47]:
In town?

Don Poffenroth [00:26:48]:
No. It was in Seattle.

Scott Cowan [00:26:49]:
In Seattle. Yeah. So you drove your pickup truck from Spokane?

Don Poffenroth [00:26:51]:
Yeah. With nine either nine or 11 cases of

Scott Cowan [00:26:54]:
That was economically, viable.

Don Poffenroth [00:26:56]:
Listen. This day, we Don a product. We were gonna get it there. We had somebody buying. We had a customer.

Scott Cowan [00:27:01]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:27:02]:
And at that time, we couldn’t sell ourselves. Right? Right. It was before the craft distilling laws had really solidified. And we had done the legislative work to allow ourselves to exist, so we were somewhat responsible for getting that, going and started. And Chris Marr, a local state senator, helped us get that done, which was awesome.

Scott Cowan [00:27:19]:
And

Don Poffenroth [00:27:20]:
then we continued to develop that law to ultimately give us the opportunity to sell our own product. But at that time, it was all done through

Scott Cowan [00:27:29]:
the state. So we went from nine cases the first time to, I think, three pallets on the second order, which is three

Don Poffenroth [00:27:30]:
weeks later. Okay. But, I mean, that’s kinda how we got started in the state. And and, very early on, in our first month of existence or two, you know, when we would bottle product, it would be friends and family.

Scott Cowan [00:27:42]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:27:43]:
So we would all gather around a table, and we would fill four bottles and put corks in and put shrink-wrap thingies on them and etcetera, etcetera. And, you know, we would be happy if we did 40 cases that would take four or five hours. And we did an interview with a local public, TV station, kind of Don, like, a, you know, a Spokane profile kind of thing. And at the end of that interview, the person asked, he said, well, I mean, is there any way people can help you out? And we’re like, listen, man. My mom and dad won’t come anymore. I’ve been a caller. We have to bottle on Saturday. You know, we had, like, burn the bridges.

Don Poffenroth [00:28:15]:
Like, we could really use help bottling, and then that became a thing. So at, within little or no time, we were bottling, you know, twice a week. We had eight or 10 people each time.

Scott Cowan [00:28:27]:
So volunteers were coming in?

Don Poffenroth [00:28:29]:
They were we first, we put a list in, and people would come sign up to a list. And then we found people would come in, and they go like, oh, we wanna come back. So then that group would was to get. So we got to the point where we had a year’s worth of people signed up ahead of time. It was the most amazing thing. So it was the greatest, community outreach brand ambassador program that was never meant to be that happened. That’s awesome. So it ingrained us in the community, and and we’ve done multiple things there.

Don Poffenroth [00:28:55]:
Most most recently, we really shut down as a distillery during the, first part of COVID and started making hand sanitizer. So we were the first distillery to get federally licensed to do hand sanitizer and then did that for our community, and we we gave that product away. And we felt that that was what we needed to do to help. So we would have lines of people, sometimes 50 blocks long in their cars that would come by, and we would hand them bottles of sanitizer. And then we do that on Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, we would do first responders and hospitals. They would come in, and we would load that them up. So it just became a thing, and we were filling hand sanitizer in every way you can imagine from we had Gatorade jugs that we were filling little bottles out of, and you couldn’t get bottles.

Don Poffenroth [00:29:43]:
Like, it Right. So it became apparent quickly that that supply was necessary. So, I mean, we had bottles coming from all over the country, and then we sent out kind of an SOS. We can’t get bottles. And we got people calling us, say, well, I used to have a perfume company. I have 10,000 of these bottles. So we put sanitizer and perfume bottles. And

Scott Cowan [00:30:01]:
we did

Don Poffenroth [00:30:02]:
whatever we could get our hands on. And there were some amazing, local companies that stepped up to help us out, and then we would have groups of volunteer filling, groups of volunteers handing stuff out. And and it was a crazy time for us, but it was the right thing for us to Don. And and, I’m so glad we did it, and we, were able to help the community. I think at that time, when COVID was just starting, everybody was freaked out, and it was the one thing that made people feel okay.

Scott Cowan [00:30:35]:
Yeah. Yeah. So you guys so this company has had a nice rapport with its with Spokane.

Don Poffenroth [00:30:45]:
I love Spokane, man. I think, I think that’s pretty mutual.

Scott Cowan [00:30:50]:
Okay. We’re We’re gonna come back to you. Oh, I promise we’re gonna put you on the spot. But I wanna know the name Dryfly. I think I’m not a fisherman either. So Yep. Here’s the guy who’s not an expert on vodka and gin, our fishing, they’re asking you questions about your stuff. How’d you come up with the name?

Don Poffenroth [00:31:07]:
Definitely came from fly fishing. So I’m an avid fly fisherman, and and, you know, I I, again, came out of the food industry and out of the branding propositions and and had done that for a long time in my career. So to me, I wanted, I wanted something that would, reflect the Northwest.

Scott Cowan [00:31:29]:
K.

Don Poffenroth [00:31:30]:
And, in obviously, that I connected to it made it easier for me to live with that and sell it because it was a passion of mine. And the the red fly was very iconic. I I can remember exactly when we developed that and how we did it. And there were beers involved and flashlights and fly tying vices in Downtown Seattle at an ad agency that helped us do that. And, my idea, my background thought was I I need to create this Nike swoosh for dry fly. Right? This thing that eventually, that fly all by itself will tell the story.

Scott Cowan [00:32:07]:
So is that fly is it is it an actual fly?

Don Poffenroth [00:32:12]:
Absolutely.

Scott Cowan [00:32:12]:
Oh, well, okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:32:13]:
Yeah. It is a Parachute Adams.

Scott Cowan [00:32:15]:
Thank you. Yes. Okay. And what on earth would I use that fly?

Don Poffenroth [00:32:20]:
It is a go to Western River Okay. Fly that was developed, I think, in the nineteen thirties, if I’m not mistaken, maybe even earlier than that. And just an iconic Western fly. So when we were looking at doing this, we literally took a fly tying vise, stuck flies in, and then flashed a flashlight behind it, looked at the shadow on a wall. So that was how we found what we were looking for.

Scott Cowan [00:32:45]:
I like that. Yeah. That’s very cool. So we’ve been doing this fifteen years.

Don Poffenroth [00:32:52]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:32:52]:
And I warned well, I didn’t really warn you, but I these bounce around a lot. These are not a linear conversation.

Don Poffenroth [00:32:57]:
It’s all good.

Scott Cowan [00:32:58]:
During the fifteen years, has the state been reasonable to work with?

Don Poffenroth [00:33:08]:
I think for the most part. Okay. I’ll tell you that, especially during this pandemic, the state has been amazing.

Scott Cowan [00:33:15]:
One of the things just being a casual, you know, consumer of alcohol, I I was reading the Seattle Times, and I I saw that they were allowing to go cocktails. And I was I was just like I couldn’t I couldn’t believe it. I was I was I don’t know if there was any more news out of COVID that struck me more than the state of Washington saying, you can sell cocktails to

Don Poffenroth [00:33:36]:
go. Well, I I think listen. I, I’ve had issues with the state of Washington. I mean, I think that is a common thing in my industry to to have things. I I think the state of Washington has made a number of mistakes, and I think that happened when we when we went from a state run liquor system to a privatized system. I I think people were hurt in that equation. I think there were a a bunch of small manufacturers that were crushed because market access went away. So I think there were some bad things during that period.

Don Poffenroth [00:34:08]:
And I I think most of the problems that I probably have ever had with the state of Washington happened in that time.

Scott Cowan [00:34:13]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:34:14]:
We were fortunate that at that time, the state of Washington was maybe 20 or 30% of our overall sales. Right? So we had diversified in other states. So we learned to wag our way through. Plus, we were in business for eight or ten years before November happened. So we were already on the shelf. We were we were in the system. Mhmm. So it made it easier, for us.

Don Poffenroth [00:34:37]:
And it a lot of our small counterparts went away during that. Being a small guy got to be very, very difficult. Since the pandemic, the state has done, I think, everything they can to, in some way, protect their own revenue stream. Right? They they make a lot of money of selling alcohol. To, help the industry, meaning they know that the restaurant tours and the bars got slammed and hammered. So things like to go cocktails, I think, were a nod for them to say, we’re we’re gonna try to help you guys survive here.

Scott Cowan [00:35:13]:
Mhmm.

Don Poffenroth [00:35:14]:
Now whether that carries on into the future, we have yet to see. But, I’m a big believer that as a licensee, you’re already being held to a standard. You have the license. They can take that from you whenever they want to.

Scott Cowan [00:35:28]:
K.

Don Poffenroth [00:35:28]:
So if you, can, provide a service or do an activity that adds additional revenue to the state and doesn’t, violate any of the terms of your license, then we really shouldn’t have a problem with it.

Scott Cowan [00:35:42]:
Okay. There and where I’m going with this is that I’m looking at some canned cocktails. Mhmm.

Don Poffenroth [00:35:49]:
I think that’s an entirely different thing. Right? So to us canned cocktails, we’re this ability as we have a very outdoorsy brand, and and, I’m a very avid fly fisherman. I mean, I fish as much as I possibly can. Okay. I am probably rare, although I have a lot of friends that do the same thing. But I’m probably rare in the fact that I will actually take a bottle of whiskey on a boat with me in a raft or a drift boat to go fly fishing, and I don’t have a problem pouring a flask and enjoying a little whiskey as I fish. Having a canned cocktail and being outdoors and being able to reduce the waste and take it with you, not having to carry a big old bottle in your boat is, you know, the perfect thing for our brand. So it is, you know, the outside version of Dryfly.

Scott Cowan [00:36:36]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:36:37]:
The RTD category, you know, ready to drink. I I think that younger people seek that, that, ability to get something great that they just don’t have to deal with. Right? Plain and simple. It’s ready to go and away we go. We took a very unique approach on those two. Like, we have some of the lowest alcohol level products in the RTD category. And why did we do that? Because we think it’s the responsible thing to do. I’d rather have people have a couple cans than they can just have one.

Don Poffenroth [00:37:04]:
And when we get into twelve, thirteen, 14 percent, 12 ounce cans of alcohol, if you drink two of those cans, you just drink a bottle of wine. Right? So from a consumption level, it is precarious. And a lot of those cans will say, well, there’s two portions in there. But in reality, we know that somebody’s gonna drink the whole can. What happens when you go to a lower alcohol level, you have to learn how to preserve your product. You gotta take care of it. You have to be clean. You have to be sanitary.

Don Poffenroth [00:37:30]:
Part of the reason you use high alcohol, it kills everything. So it was a conscious decision to go the way we went. As a result of having lower alcohol levels, we can use real fruits and real juices and they all come through and they just taste better. Plain and simple.

Scott Cowan [00:37:46]:
Can you walk me through the process of a cherry pick?

Don Poffenroth [00:37:50]:
Part, I mean, we we make, we’re just getting ready to do some whiskey products in the can, but right now, it’s, primarily vodka and gin that we’re using as a base, though. So we ultimately make a base of product. It will have water, fruit juices. We use sugar in in some not sugar in others. Just kinda depends upon the product. If it says it has huckleberries in it It’s

Scott Cowan [00:38:11]:
got huckleberries.

Don Poffenroth [00:38:11]:
Has huckleberries in it. If it says it has grapefruit juice in it, we get that from grapefruits. It says it has oranges, it has real orange juice in it. Okay. So, what it says is what’s in there. We ultimately blend that together, proof it down. There’s, when you proof, an item so when you set the alcohol level on an item that, is lower alcohol level, it’s different instrumentation. So we had to buy a a machine to do that, which is $25,000.

Don Poffenroth [00:38:37]:
But it allows that batching to be precise and correct. And, then that goes into a a tank, and we carbonate it and at different levels. So we also make a bloody Marion here, which is carbonated with nitrogen instead of c o two because nobody wants a fizzy bloody Marion. Anyway, you learn those things as you go, and we learned that. The first time we canned cans, we canned on a little machine that did two cans at a time. Now our machine does a hundred cans a minute. So it’s an evolution. And and, everything we’ve done at Dryfly has been an evolution.

Don Poffenroth [00:39:10]:
Like, we’ve started simply and worked our way into it.

Scott Cowan [00:39:14]:
So where where are the cans available? Are they are they

Don Poffenroth [00:39:17]:
42 states now. 42 states. Right.

Scott Cowan [00:39:20]:
Just to put you on the spot, name one of the eight that it’s not.

Don Poffenroth [00:39:23]:
Delaware. Delaware. Yeah. So what what happens, I’ll admit and this this same thing in bottle product. Right? The distribution outside of the Northwest where we have eyes, you know, and and, closer contact. And maybe even down into California, we’re fine. But as you start to get farther east, we have to use people to help us out. So, typically, who our distributor is is incredibly important.

Scott Cowan [00:39:49]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:39:49]:
We typically are gonna put a broker in that marketplace, so we have feet on the street to assist. Or in some cases, we’ve hired some individuals that may work a four or five state area, almost in a broker role, but they they really work for us. There are some states where you learn quickly that the cost of doing business exceeds what you could ever achieve Okay. In any quick basis. I mean, the licensing fees or, or the the regulatory, situation is, you know, precarious for whatever reason. There are some states where, you know, it just it just doesn’t matter.

Scott Cowan [00:40:28]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:40:28]:
I mean, I was may just kinda look at it and go like so do I think we’ll ever be in all 50 states? Probably not as we’re dry fly. If somebody, with some additional horsepower, whether that’s in the distribution world or, somebody was to acquire us or do something that that had 50 state distribution and could run that horse

Scott Cowan [00:40:47]:
Mhmm.

Don Poffenroth [00:40:47]:
Then that’s probably how that’ll happen. You know, be being in the mid forties is pretty damn good for us.

Scott Cowan [00:40:53]:
So are the cans where if I were to go somewhere here in Spokane Mhmm. Where would I find it?

Don Poffenroth [00:41:00]:
Grocery stores.

Scott Cowan [00:41:00]:
In the grocery are they in the beer section?

Don Poffenroth [00:41:02]:
In some stores. Right? So it is, Washington state. Great great example of our liquor control board is ultimately learning that this is a new category and we have to deal with it. So when we started out, they were in the liquor section. Right? And no one looks for a canned product in the liquor section.

Scott Cowan [00:41:17]:
Right.

Don Poffenroth [00:41:17]:
So there’s been some, some loosening of kind of those, things. So now you may see some display outside right outside the beer. You may see some stuff in the cooler. It all just depends on the individual store and how the sets are done and

Scott Cowan [00:41:32]:
And so approximately, what’s the the the alcohol in a can?

Don Poffenroth [00:41:35]:
Oh, they range from five to seven or 8%.

Scott Cowan [00:41:38]:
Okay. So they’re right there with, like, a a cider or a

Don Poffenroth [00:41:40]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:41:41]:
Some crackers.

Don Poffenroth [00:41:41]:
That really was the target. Okay.

Scott Cowan [00:41:43]:
Alright. I okay. Hard question for you.

Don Poffenroth [00:41:47]:
There’s no hard questions.

Scott Cowan [00:41:48]:
What’s your favorite dry fly product?

Don Poffenroth [00:41:51]:
Oh, wow. Okay. That is a hard question. It’s like saying which one of your kids Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:41:56]:
I know.

Don Poffenroth [00:42:00]:
Don the bottle product side, I am most proud. We we make a whiskey from a grain called triticale, and we were

Scott Cowan [00:42:06]:
What was

Don Poffenroth [00:42:06]:
that? Triticale. Triticale is an old, Scottish grain that is a hybrid of wheat and rye.

Scott Cowan [00:42:12]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:42:13]:
And, the reason we started working with that grain is that you cannot, for the most part, in the state of Washington, grow rye. It is a noxious wheat in almost every county of the state because it is an anti wheat crop. So, rye decimates wheat. And if you talk to anyone who’s worked on a wheat farm even as a kid, usually your job as a kid is to go out in the field and pull up the rye that comes up. Right? Because it’s just you don’t want it in your seed bin. Oh. Yeah. You don’t want it to perpetuate.

Don Poffenroth [00:42:43]:
So rye is a nasty word for wheat farmers. So trying to stay in our single sourcing farm, again, that being our driving thing. And we were lucky enough to meet, some folks out of Ritzville actually, in this, Spectrum Grain Development, and they were starting to grow triticale in the state of Washington. And it is not a grain that overwinters. It doesn’t do what rye does at the end of the day. And so it, was our ability to dabble in the world of rye without using rye. And so we worked with WSU, grew a a number of grain varieties, narrowed it down to one particular seed, and started making triticale whiskey. And, we were I think I know.

Don Poffenroth [00:43:27]:
We were the first distillery in the world to make a % triticale whiskey. May still be. I don’t know.

Scott Cowan [00:43:32]:
Okay. And that’s that’s your you’re proud of that one?

Don Poffenroth [00:43:36]:
Yeah. That’s something that we did from the ground up.

Scott Cowan [00:43:39]:
Okay. I’ve never okay. I had no idea about that rye was a a

Don Poffenroth [00:43:46]:
See what you learn when you come to Dryfly fly?

Scott Cowan [00:43:48]:
Well, that’s

Don Poffenroth [00:43:48]:
just that’s these great things.

Scott Cowan [00:43:49]:
I I’m that’s this this whole episode is about me learning and anything I don’t know very much.

Don Poffenroth [00:43:53]:
I I learn every day.

Scott Cowan [00:43:54]:
I’m fifty years into this. This is why I do this show is I get to I get to talk to interesting people.

Don Poffenroth [00:43:59]:
I I learned a lot about, multimillion dollar construction projects. Right? And that’s something that was outside my

Scott Cowan [00:44:06]:
It went it went flawlessly. Right? Nothing Not never And I

Don Poffenroth [00:44:09]:
did in the middle of a pandemic.

Scott Cowan [00:44:11]:
Yeah. So,

Don Poffenroth [00:44:12]:
all sorts of interesting issues there. But could go

Scott Cowan [00:44:14]:
wrong. But we’ll we’ll skip that. Yeah. Yeah.

Don Poffenroth [00:44:16]:
You know, I will say that it it probably in hindsight and I’m not all the way done yet. I’m I’m awfully close. But if I was to sit back and ponder it, and and I’ve been in this building for a year and change. So I’ve been here every day that this project has been going on.

Scott Cowan [00:44:31]:
Uh-huh.

Don Poffenroth [00:44:32]:
I’ve learned a lot. I’ve, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a general contractor on-site here who, grew up with my brother. So somebody that I’ve known, and I’ve come to know him very well in his company. And we could talk about things and work through things and make decisions and go because there were a lot of those given the fact that you would say, well, we’re gonna do this kind of lighting, and then the lighting company said, well, we can’t get those lights for a year. Then you gotta change your whole game. So there are a lot of bobs and weaves that happen there. Right. But, I mean, I learned a lot about that process and how to manage that and do it and survive.

Don Poffenroth [00:45:11]:
I also did a lot of stuff in here I’ll never do again. Never laying carpet again. I’m done with that.

Scott Cowan [00:45:17]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:45:18]:
If I never have to paint a wall again, I’m okay right now.

Scott Cowan [00:45:20]:
You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re not

Don Poffenroth [00:45:21]:
in your town. Things that I’ve got my, my life allotment has been allocated.

Scott Cowan [00:45:27]:
So before I hit record, you were telling me you’re born here

Don Poffenroth [00:45:32]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:45:33]:
Grew up here, lived your life here, made your business decision to be here. Yep. Why do you like Spokane so much?

Don Poffenroth [00:45:45]:
I’m a casual. I like to think I’m a kind, gentle, meaningful person, and I think there’s a lot of people like me here.

Scott Cowan [00:45:55]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:45:57]:
I’m amazed that my friend group, as I’ve developed over my life, are people that are exactly like me. I think that’s rare to find people who have the same philosophy about life and business and other things. And and I I cherish when I meet people like that, and I’ve met some wonderful people like that over the last few years

Scott Cowan [00:46:16]:
k.

Don Poffenroth [00:46:16]:
That, come from many different walks of life and many different business experience levels. But when you sit and talk to them, we all are the same kind of people. I like that hometown, farm y kind of thing about Spokane. And I like the fact we can talk to people, and we can move around, and we can still be kind and gentle as we go through life. And and I love the fact that Spokane, when this community sets its mind to something, it gets done. And, we’ve been on the fortunate side of that.

Scott Cowan [00:46:53]:
So Spokane, full of kind kind people, hardworking people. You mentioned that

Don Poffenroth [00:46:57]:
Yeah. Just that great farm ethic of, you know, hard work and getting it Don. And and that there were you know, I jokingly said before, I there were a lot of things that I did in this bill I never do before. I I don’t know if I would give the experience up either. Like Sure. You know, I think that ethic of, work hard, sweat equity is, you know, even fifteen years into the equation, still important.

Scott Cowan [00:47:21]:
Okay. You also said something. You called Spokane the what is the largest Biggest farm town. Biggest farm town.

Don Poffenroth [00:47:29]:
Yeah. I I again, I think the, the farmers that I know, that are family farmers from this area are some of the coolest people I’ve ever met, and and I see that reflected all over Spokane. K. Yeah. I see that, again, when in a way, I think of when I think of farmers getting together and we see it happen every now and then where somebody has some kind of a problem and the community takes care of itself. Spokane does that, to a degree. There’s some things that we could do better in that arena. But when Spokane wants to get together to achieve something, they can do that.

Don Poffenroth [00:48:05]:
And I think that is, you know, at at its root, probably an old time farm thing that’s coming through.

Scott Cowan [00:48:11]:
Okay. So when you’re not here at Dryfly, which you already just said you’ve been here every day for a year, what do you what do you like to do for fun and excitement around here?

Don Poffenroth [00:48:21]:
Oh, I mean, again, I’m an I’m an avid fly fisherman. So if I can take some time to get out on the river, I’ll do that. And that can be the Spokane River, which is 300 yards from here, or it could be, you know, going somewhere more exotic. So I I definitely try to take my time. I’ve been pretty poor about that.

Scott Cowan [00:48:38]:
Where’s your go to fly fishing spot in Washington?

Don Poffenroth [00:48:41]:
Well, in I mean, I’ll I’ll fish the Spokane.

Scott Cowan [00:48:43]:
I mean,

Don Poffenroth [00:48:44]:
I think it is an underdeveloped and underappreciated fishery. It it takes some patience to get used to the Spokane. Okay. And, and it takes some time, maybe some different methodology, but we’re very fortunate. We have our own, species of red band trout in this river that are native to this waterway, which is, like, super cool. So you can catch a fish here you can’t catch anywhere else in the world.

Scott Cowan [00:49:10]:
Oh, that’s cool.

Don Poffenroth [00:49:11]:
You know, that being said, driving an hour or two doesn’t much get in my way here.

Scott Cowan [00:49:16]:
So what what what’s an hour or two from here?

Don Poffenroth [00:49:18]:
I’ll go to, Western Montana and the Clark Fork or the Bitterroot, or I can go into Idaho Don the Saint Joe or the North Fork Of The Coeur D’Alene. I typically am a moving water fisherman. Don you

Scott Cowan [00:49:29]:
ever do the Yakima? You’re

Don Poffenroth [00:49:30]:
I’ve done the Yakima a fair number of times over my lifetime, but I I tend to I tend to go east instead of west now.

Scott Cowan [00:49:37]:
Okay. Alright.

Don Poffenroth [00:49:39]:
I mountain bike, and and cycle, although this has been a horrible year for me. I usually do a 1,500 or 2,000 miles a year. Oh. And I restore antique cars. So, yeah, I’ve got plenty of hobbies. That’s why I should retire.

Scott Cowan [00:49:52]:
Antique cars. What do you what do you what was

Don Poffenroth [00:49:54]:
your latest pricing? Pre 1915 stuff. So

Scott Cowan [00:49:57]:
Oh.

Don Poffenroth [00:49:58]:
A 1911 Ford that actually is not restored. I bought it. It has never been restored, which is part of the reason why I bought it. So

Scott Cowan [00:50:05]:
Not related to Early car guy. Not related to distilling at all. Why? No. I’m not a car guy. I’m not a lot of things. Nine why the cutoff at 1915?

Don Poffenroth [00:50:16]:
1915 is a cutoff in, in the in car collecting for, they call that the brass era, the beginning era of antique cars. And there’s a cub a club, the Horseless Carriage Club of America, that is kind of pre 1916. So it it really is sort of club driven to a certain degree. Not that I don’t like other cars beyond that category. I just really like the early stuff.

Scott Cowan [00:50:38]:
Alright. Put you on the spot, what’s your daily driver?

Don Poffenroth [00:50:41]:
Well, I drive a GMC pickup truck just because I have to haul crap all the time.

Scott Cowan [00:50:46]:
Okay. What else about Downtown Spokane? What’s what what should I go see? I’m I’ve got a couple hours to kill, if you will. Yeah. It’s a weekday. What’s going on in Downtown Spokane I should check out?

Don Poffenroth [00:50:59]:
Well, unfortunately, it’s Monday, so it’s probably our our weakest day. Sure. But what what has happened in Spokane, like many other cities is, you know, when the downtown core starts to get kind of a little unused, if the city revitalizes correctly, then that creates a pathway for new younger businesses to come in and get started. So I think you’ll see a a bar and restaurant scene, although it’s COVID kinda screwed up right now, that is, you know, it’s ready. There’s a there’s been a ton of new restaurants that have opened in the last year, God bless them, in the middle of this. I have words I can use for it, but I I’m sure they’re not allowed.

Scott Cowan [00:51:40]:
Oh, they

Don Poffenroth [00:51:41]:
but, you know, I’m I’m glad that that, those guys and I and I listen. I am the biggest fan that I hope they’re able to make it through this because it’s not easy right now

Scott Cowan [00:51:51]:
Right.

Don Poffenroth [00:51:51]:
Trying to get that done. Riverfront Park, which is the middle of our city, is, you know, Spokane’s version of Central Park. That was our Expo seventy four site. It is a beautiful place and, just a showcase for our city and being able to be outside. And and I think if you’re, you’re wanting to come to Spokane and and, people who want to move here kinda learn from people who have been here, that the reason you live here is that you can be outside four seasons and do four different sets of activities. Right? So there is, within incredibly short walks, I I can take you places in the city, and you’ll have no idea that we’re that close to the city.

Scott Cowan [00:52:34]:
Okay. Give me an example of one.

Don Poffenroth [00:52:35]:
Riverside State Park, which is, one of our first our primary state park here is downriver from us, literally, four miles downriver from us here, is a there’s 60,000 acres. And it is a amazing place that, again, the river flows through. It’s natural. You’ll see people on horseback, mountain bikes, hiking, walking. And it’s in a gully in. You’d never realize you are literally four miles from downtown.

Scott Cowan [00:53:07]:
Wow. I mean,

Don Poffenroth [00:53:08]:
I don’t think there’s very many cities that can do that.

Scott Cowan [00:53:10]:
No. Not that I’m aware of. Are you are you a fan of coffee?

Don Poffenroth [00:53:15]:
I have a coffee every day.

Scott Cowan [00:53:18]:
So I don’t know

Don Poffenroth [00:53:18]:
if that makes me a fan because I get the same coffee all the time. Alright. Well, not a grand experimenter, but Not

Scott Cowan [00:53:23]:
a grand you’re not a you you experiment without distilling alcohol.

Don Poffenroth [00:53:26]:
Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:53:27]:
Go to coffee spots in Spokane?

Don Poffenroth [00:53:30]:
Like I said, I I literally go to the same stand, and I probably go to that same stand because of the girls who were there that I’ve gone to for the last four years. It’s just a thing. Right. Okay. It’s like this habitual thing. It’s more fun for me to say hi to them than anything else.

Scott Cowan [00:53:44]:
Then I get the coffee. Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:53:46]:
Not a great again, not a great experimenter in that category.

Scott Cowan [00:53:50]:
So what is your go to coffee then? Wait. What do you get every day?

Don Poffenroth [00:53:52]:
Oh, I I I drink a nonfat, sugar free ice mocha.

Scott Cowan [00:53:58]:
Okay. During winter?

Don Poffenroth [00:54:01]:
Even during the winter.

Scott Cowan [00:54:02]:
Even during the winter. I wear

Don Poffenroth [00:54:03]:
shorts during the winter too. So I’m just kinda one of those weird

Scott Cowan [00:54:06]:
hard questions. I I have friends like that too. Yeah. That just shirts you around. Last question I’m gonna ask you is in you’re in this new space. What’s the next twelve to twenty four months look like for you?

Don Poffenroth [00:54:20]:
Me personally or Dryfly Fly?

Scott Cowan [00:54:22]:
You well, you and Dryfly.

Don Poffenroth [00:54:23]:
How about that? Dryfly first. You know, we have to, we have to get this facility functioning, at its highest potential. And and we are literally days away from that, so it’s it’s that’s all finally coming together.

Scott Cowan [00:54:37]:
Right.

Don Poffenroth [00:54:38]:
You know, I I can proudly say that it’s paid for, Don, lock, stock, and barrel. We don’t owe anyone a hell of a lot of money, which is still a nice way to do it.

Scott Cowan [00:54:48]:
That’s awesome.

Don Poffenroth [00:54:49]:
A banker may argue with you on the owe them money part, but in the grand spectrum of things, we did this efficiently and effectively.

Scott Cowan [00:54:56]:
Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:54:57]:
And part of that was we did it ourselves to a degree that so that sweat equity thing definitely is a component in that. What our primary objectives will be are are kind of twofold. This increased canning capacity will allow us to ultimately meet the market demand because we haven’t come close yet.

Scott Cowan [00:55:15]:
Really?

Don Poffenroth [00:55:16]:
We’ve we’ve been allocating. We run out of product all the time. That’s a wonderful problem to have. Yeah. So we’ll come closer to meeting that. Do I think we’ll really catch up? No. Okay. I mean, I think what will happen is the demand, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Don Poffenroth [00:55:34]:
We will begin to barrel more more whiskey. Right? So that is one thing. Our our fermenter now our fermenters in our old facility, our fermenter would make 1.25 barrels of whiskey. These fermenters make 12 barrels of whiskey at a shot. So our ability to lay down whiskey at a much higher rate, is finally with us. So we’ll do that. That’s a good thing for us to do for our future. It’s like a gigantic savings account

Scott Cowan [00:55:57]:
Right. Right. Yeah.

Don Poffenroth [00:55:58]:
How I philosophically think about it.

Scott Cowan [00:56:00]:
K.

Don Poffenroth [00:56:01]:
And then just it will be getting more people in this building to experience. This is a very unique place, and and we built it very, transparent that, if you sit in the facility, you can see exactly what’s happening out there. So our ability to kinda share the distilling experience with people is, this is at probably the highest level you can get anywhere that I’ve ever been. And we kind of immersed everything inside of that. I think we, will be proud to share that process and what we’re doing and and how we’re doing it, with people so that they can understand. And I I think we have, people know that when Dryfly says it, there’s a damn good chance it’s exactly right. That’s what we do. Okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:56:46]:
And then now they’ll be able to see it. It’ll be right in front of them.

Scott Cowan [00:56:51]:
Well, this is a really cool space.

Don Poffenroth [00:56:53]:
Thanks. And thanks

Scott Cowan [00:56:54]:
for making

Don Poffenroth [00:56:54]:
this happen. It’s been fun to build, and it’s been fun to have visions about what this would all look like and how it would all be. And and, I can say that, you know, in in the high 90 percentile, it kinda turned out exactly like I thought it would.

Scott Cowan [00:57:10]:
Alright. My my my safety valve question is, what didn’t I ask you that I should’ve?

Don Poffenroth [00:57:16]:
Well, I think we hit on, you know, our core values. We we talk about, you know, patience and persistence and perfection, and those are things we strive for. You can never be perfect, but you gotta point that way. The patience thing, that defines the world of whiskey. You know, do things that you know, you may never see. I may never see. You’re or or Sure. That’s okay.

Don Poffenroth [00:57:43]:
You know? And and I always be persistent about everything we do. We try to treat our people correctly and and,

Scott Cowan [00:57:51]:
How many people are working here now?

Don Poffenroth [00:57:52]:
Yeah. We’re up to 32. Wow.

Scott Cowan [00:57:54]:
Yeah. How’s that feel?

Don Poffenroth [00:57:57]:
That’s frightening. You know? When we started with two, and now we’re 32, having a group of people, is exciting. The the thing that I have to work very hard Don, and this is just my ethos is, you know, I I have to know people. I I still have to take time to sit down and talk to everybody and try to get to know them and who they are. And that allows me to figure out, to a certain degree, because I’ve done that with the majority of our staff, whether or not I think they’re gonna fit and it’s gonna work

Scott Cowan [00:58:28]:
and Uh-huh.

Don Poffenroth [00:58:29]:
And things like that. You know, I think we’ve learned, some really good lessons. We don’t need to hire talent here. We just need to hire great people. We don’t teach anybody anything

Scott Cowan [00:58:38]:
Mhmm.

Don Poffenroth [00:58:38]:
Especially in this scenario and especially here because everything is new. So although, you know, Patrick, who is where is our employee number one is still here. He runs a production thing. Producing like we produce now is not like we used to produce before.

Scott Cowan [00:58:52]:
Right.

Don Poffenroth [00:58:52]:
This is a much more efficient, simpler. We’ve taken some of the romance out of turning knobs and running the still. We’ve made it so you push a button on a computer, which sounds bad, but trust me, it’s not. It’s a good thing. But it it’s evolution. So, you know, watching our even our core group of people evolve is pretty dang fun.

Scott Cowan [00:59:12]:
Alright. Well, thank you for taking the time.

Don Poffenroth [00:59:16]:
My pleasure. Glad it worked out.

Scott Cowan [00:59:17]:
Yeah. Thank you.

Don Poffenroth [00:59:18]:
You got it.

Scott Cowan [00:59:29]:
Join us next time for another episode of the Exploring Washington State podcast.