Rediviva Distilling’s Cherry Almond Liqueur earns double gold

WASHOUGAL — A chemical engineer by trade, Gary Phillips figured he could succeed in distilling by employing a strict science-based approach. He quickly learned it takes much more than following a recipe to create an exceptional liqueur.

“It’s quite a marriage between the science and the art of it,” Phillips said. “There’s science and engineering with the equipment and the temperature and the timing. Well, that sort of gets you in the ballpark, but it doesn’t get you across the goal line.”

Today, Phillips’ Washougal-based Rediviva Distilling is earning accolades in the industry after snagging a double-gold medal for its Cherry Almond Liqueur in April at the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, which is considered a prestigious event in the distilling world.

“It is really a big deal,” Phillips said.

A double gold requires unanimous approval from all of the event’s judges.

“It surprised the hell out of us,” Phillips added. “We thought it was good, and people who tasted it thought it was good. But the fact that we got a double gold shocked us.”

Phillips owned and operated several production businesses in Washougal before launching Rediviva Distilling in 2020, transforming a building designed for polysilicon manufacturing into a distillery.

Phillips said the facility-renovation work was done “pretty much single-handedly” by Paul Clark, one of his longtime employees and a “master craftsman.”

“It took about two years,” Clark said. “I did all the coatings, the electric, the plumbing. It was fun. I really like this kind of work, and to be able to take something old and repurpose it was just a no-brainer for me.”

In 2021, Phillips hired Daniel Ruiz, who worked as a distiller at Clear Creek Distillery in Portland for 14 years.

“I was looking for someone that had expertise in distilling, and particularly the products of Washington state — the apples, the peaches, the plums, the grapes,” Phillips said.

The distillery purchases virtually all of its fresh fruit from Pacific Northwest vendors.

“The mouthfeel and the sensation that you get from a fruit-based liqueur or a fruit-based spirit is a lot different than grain-based,” Phillips said. “Whiskeys and bourbons are made from corn or wheat or rice, and it’s just a different taste profile. Living here in Washington, where we have all of those fruits, that’s been our focus, and I don’t think that we regret going down that path.”

The fruit-focused approach suits Ruiz just fine.

“We have to start out with a high-quality product to begin with, because if we deal with low-quality fruit, that transitions to the final product,” he said. “We’re really just capturing the whole fruit, the essence of the fruit, and then through the fermentation and distillation process, we want to capture all that great flavor and aromas that we start with and transition that into a fruit spirit in a bottle that people take home with them and taste throughout the year.”

More spirits ahead

The distillery currently produces five spirits —Blackberry Liqueur, Blue Plum Brandy, Orange Liqueur, Cherry Brandy and the award-winning Cherry Almond Liqueur. It plans to add three more single-batch spirits to its lineup.

“A lot of people just buy neutral grain spirits, flavor them, and put their label on them,” Clark said. “Ours are all done in-house. It takes five bottles of wine to make one bottle of our product.”

That process makes Rediviva’s spirits more costly to produce but, in the opinion of their creators, also more flavorful.

“We’re targeting our product to people that are more appreciative of the spirit rather than just the alcohol effect,” Phillips said.

The first phase of Phillips’ vision for the distillery included the installation of the 150-gallon pot and fermentation equipment that Ruiz and Clark use now. The second phase will include a second, larger still that will allow the distillery to expand its operations.

“It’s a commercial still, and it operates under vacuum, so we’re looking in Phase 2 to increase our capacity for (our current) five products as we develop other products,” he said.

Phillips said a third phase will involve the making of additional products, including non-alcoholic wine and resveratrol, a phenol found in the skin of grapes, blueberries, raspberries and other fruits, commonly used as a dietary supplement.

The distillery is also looking for opportunities for collaboration.

“We’ve reached out to some wineries in Eastern Washington and had some conversations with the idea that we’ll work with them to process their grapes into spirits like we’re currently making, even under their label, and wine-based products,” Phillips said.

He said he may decide to construct another building on the distillery’s property to function as a tasting room, which could host small concerts and other events.

For now, Ruiz is working on an offsite tasting room in conjunction with another alcoholic beverage purveyor.

“We’re in the fruit-based (spirits business), so we’ve been talking to some other wineries,” Phillips said, adding that he would love to find a winery to partner with on a joint tasting room.

Rediviva spirits have found a home at Clark County businesses, including Tommy O’s in Camas and ilani Casino Resort in La Center. They will be featured at the Craft Beer & and Wine Fest from Aug. 9 to 11 in Vancouver and on Aug. 15 during Summer Nights Sips & Bites in downtown Camas.

They’re also available — or will be soon be — at Washougal Times Restaurant and Lounge, Total Wine & More in Vancouver, Safeway, The Grocery Cocktail and Social in Vancouver, Thirsty Sasquatch in Vancouver, and the Waterfront Taphouse in Vancouver, as well as at the distillery’s website, redivivadistilling.com.

“I totally underestimated the difficulty in actually creating a brand, a brand that people would recognize and say, ‘This is high-quality product, and I like to get it,’” Phillips said. “But I feel that just over the last six months, we started breaking through. A restaurant owner in Oregon told (Ruiz) that they were really excited about our products, and that makes us feel good.”