With a New Ballard Location, Wildwood Spirits Is a Distillery on the Rise | Eater Seattle

"After years of setbacks — the COVID pandemic, a nearly five-month concrete delivery strike, and a warehouse outside Tacoma that burned down after Wildwood’s distilling equipment was stored there — I attended the long-awaited grand opening of Wildwood’s Ballard tasting room and distilling space and left impressed. The packed celebration felt like a sigh of relief: a silent auction raised $10,000 for the Ballard Food Bank, snacks were catered by co-owner John Howie, and guests enjoyed an open bar pouring Manhattans and Negronis while checking out gleaming new copper stills and rows of custom barrels. Co-owner and master distiller Erik Liedholm, who brings acclaimed sommelier credentials and training from London’s Institute of Brewing and Distilling, runs a “farm to distillery” approach — using Washington State winter wheat and backyard Braeburn apples in Kur Gin, and finishing spirits in handcrafted oak that gives each batch unique nuances. Kur Gin (pronounced “cure”) has been a cornerstone: bright, citrusy and dry, it won best in show at the 2014 New York World Wine & Spirits Competition and landed on Wine & Spirit Magazine’s Top Ten that year, with numerous regional and international medals since. The distilling program also boasts recent honors — Wildwood Rendition Rye earned double gold at the 2023 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, and Stark Vatten Vodka medaled in New York in 2017 — and the new Ballard production capacity (now about two barrels a day versus the previous (Bothell) output) should allow more regular releases of fan favorites like the four-year-aged Dark Door wheated bourbon, wider distribution across the West Coast (with national expansion a long-term goal), and a tasting-room focus on classic cocktails and straight samples that showcase the spirits rather than mask them." - Brianna Gunter