Local tipplers get a smooth New Deal

By Anne Marie Distefano

The Portland Tribune, Mar 18, 2005, Updated Oct 30, 2009

“Can you just do that?” It’s the first question most people ask when they hear there’s a small vodka distillery operating in Southeast Portland. Doesn’t vodka come from Russia? Don’t you have to have a factory or something? Is this even legal?

What New Deal Distillery is doing is perfectly legit. It did take the operators two years of wading through state and federal paperwork before they could legally hit the “on” switch of their locally made still. They finally got going in July, and their product is gradually filtering out to the marketplace.

The whole thing started with two friends who like to drink vodka. Tom Burkleaux and Matthew Van Winkle work together as computer programmers, and one day they started a distillery. To hear them talk, it sounds like it just sort of happened on its own. “It seemed like it just needed to be,” Burkleaux says. Van Winkle explains further: “Vodka’s good.” He adds, “And we didn’t know how hard it was going to be.”

Neither partner had any experience in the liquor industry. Or at least, “only as an end user,” as Burkleaux jokes. This fall Jana Hughes (who also works as an administrator at the Portland Tribune) joined the team, to help with marketing and other aspects of the business.

New Deal’s low-tech approach to marketing relies mostly on local pride. They’re banking on the Portland-made angle to catch people’s attention. “Local will get us the first drink,” Burkleaux says, “but quality’s going to get us the second.”

To reach consumers, they are counting on word of mouth, and they’ve sponsored a handful of events.

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