What started as a friendly campfire gathering sparked an idea for a beverage alcohol company. With the fire roaring, whiskey flowing and good cigars being enjoyed by all, Heritage Distilling Company’s conception began.
Now, HDC is the most awarded craft distillery in North America from the American Distilling Institute, earning awards for 10 consecutive years from 2014 through 2023.
HDC makes vodkas, gins and whiskeys and operates two production distilleries and seven tasting rooms across Washington and Oregon, including: Heritage tasting rooms in Gig Harbor, Tumwater, and Roslyn, Washington, and two tasting rooms in Eugene, Oregon on Madison Street and 5th Street; Thinking Tree Spirits in Eugene; and a Heritage tasting room at Angel of the Winds Casino in Arlington, Washington.
The best part? Co-founders Justin and Jennifer Stiefel and Drew and Sara Kellerman are all still friends, working together to continue making HDC thrive.
The Campfire Co-founders
“Jennifer and I met on a field trip through the school when our boys were in first grade together, and they’ll be 21 this year. So, it’s been a long, fruitful and dear friendship with the Stiefel’s,” says Sara.
To get to know the Stiefel’s better, the Kellerman’s invited the husband-and-wife duo over to their home for dinner one night. “At one point, Justin raises his glass of whiskey and says, ‘You know, this is good whiskey, but we can make it better,’” she continues.
The next morning, a business plan arrived in the Kellerman’s inbox. “Drew and I looked at each other and said, ‘Oh my gosh, they were serious.’ We didn’t know if it was the whiskey talking or if this was something they actually wanted to do,” Sara says.
Almost 13 years later, HDC is still going strong and bringing new innovations to life.
HDC’s line of spirits include Special Operations Salute Whiskey, 1st Special Forces Group Whiskey, Cocoa Bomb Chocolate Whiskey, the Elk Rider® series, the HDC series featuring a full series of naturally flavored vodkas, the BATCH NO. 12® line of spirits, Florescence (a partnership with cookbook author, food stylist and TV personality Danielle Kartes and Rustic Joyful Food), Stiefel’s Select premium whiskeys, Spirits Advent Calendars, and more. HDC’s products can be found in bars, restaurants and retailers in select states, according to the website.
Mission-Ready
Even though none of the co-founders had any previous experience in the beverage alcohol industry, each person brings their own unique knowledge to the table to help make HDC the award-winning distillery it is today.
“So, there’s an interesting self-taught steep learning curve approach that lent itself to a couple of iterations before we got things going and got our product line right,” mentions Drew. “It also gave us an opportunity to be hyper innovative and creative on how we approach our products because we didn’t have any conceptions holding us back.”
Even though each one had a lot to learn about the beverage alcohol space, the Kellerman’s background as military officers has helped them to be prepared for a variety of situations that arise when running a company.
“In the military, it’s all about being mission-ready and being prepared with all of the tools in place with the right timelines, personnel and equipment,” notes Sara. “When you work in that scenario long enough, you start to anticipate challenges and different worst-case scenarios.”
This mission-ready preparedness helped keep HDC afloat during COVID. “We pivoted to making hand sanitizer and were actually able to hire a team during that time,” Sara says. “We even had local medical personnel showing up at our distillery doorstep and asking to take whatever we had. That ability to pivot and anticipate challenges has allowed us to stay in business all these years.”
Justin, CEO and co-founder, also brings a background in chemical engineering and law to the table, providing him with a deep understanding of the distillation process while also being able to easily navigate the regulatory landscape of the alcohol industry.
Jennifer, president and co-founder, has prior experience in education that has honed her ability to communicate clearly and effectively. She says this has been essential for her to “properly train staff and create an engaging customer experience.”
“Our combined experiences foster the ability to execute large-scale projects with discipline and coordination and helped establish HDC as a premier craft distillery,” says Justin. “This allowed HDC to grow from an idea sparked around a campfire to one of the largest and most awarded craft distilleries in North America.”
Sustainable Distilling
Running a distillery often results in quite a large carbon footprint – especially one that distills multiple different liquors.
“We use a tremendous amount of energy in distillation,” explains Drew. “Right from the get-go, Justin and his uncle Al, who’s a veteran, came up with a way to have the most sustainable, efficient processes for how we could use the least amount of energy possible to generate the heat we needed.”
Aside from reducing its carbon footprint, Drew says that HDC leans heavily into sourcing local ingredients wherever possible. In fact, they figured out a way to distill leftover wine from the wine industry.
“Washington is one of the largest wine-producing states in the country, with a lot of large batches being produced,” Drew says. “So, we would reach out to different wineries and buy their leftover wine. Then, we would triple distill it and turn it into vodka.”
Due to the impact Covid had on the wine industry, HDC is no longer able to source leftover wine. Instead, Drew says they now primarily use grains as the bases for all their whiskies and grain-based spirits, sourcing the ingredients from different friends and businesses across the state.
“We do everything we can to source locally because not only is it good for the environment, but it also helps to keep our costs down. It’s good to find ways to be efficient with our ingredients and our energy,” says Drew.
Not only are the HDC co-founders big on helping the environment, they’re also big on giving to charity.
Just over a year ago, HDC launched its Salute Series, a whiskey line that raises funds for organizations who support the U.S. Special Operations Forces.
“This is very near and dear to Drew’s and my roots as military veterans,” says Sara. “We thought, ‘How can we start a new line of whiskies as a fundraising project?’ Then in the fall of 2023, we started with our Army Special Operations Salute release.”
Most recently, HDC released its War Dogs Whiskey back in August in honor of U.S. military dogs. Other products in the series include D-Day 80th Anniversary Air, Land and Sea whiskies. Every purchase of one of these spirits goes towards HDC’s non-profit partners.
New Spirit Innovations
The distillery is constantly introducing new innovations to its product line. And they have a lot planned for next year.
“We do have a few things in the works that will hopefully come out next year,” says Drew. “We’re working on an Air Force whiskey, as well as a whiskey to celebrate the warriors who participated in Operation Overlord. There’s another major battle that took place in the Pacific that is going to have its 80th anniversary next year, so we will also be launching another commemorative whiskey to celebrate that battle.”
