New Deal Distillery started as a recession joke. Tom Burkleaux told friends that if the economy got any worse, he wouldn't be able to afford his favorite imported vodka — so he'd have to make his own. With one book and a lot of experimentation he figured it out, wrote a business plan whose entire goal was to sell one bottle to one stranger off a liquor store shelf, and in 2004 opened what was then the smallest licensed distillery in America in a space not much bigger than a broom closet. It was the first distillery in the area of Southeast Portland now known as Distillery Row, and it's still there, in a building on SE Salmon Street bought in 2012 to house a custom Christian Carl still. Burkleaux's rule, learned from a sniper instructor: simplicity baffles the modern man. Vodka remains the specialty — the flagship Portland Vodka, the Distiller's Reserve, and Hot Monkey, infused with real Southwestern chili peppers — and every infusion in the house uses real ingredients rather than the synthetic flavorings legacy brands lean on. From there the range grew organically: Portland Dry Gin 33, an Old Tom, Oregon straight whiskeys in wheat, rye, and bourbon, the botanical-rich Cascadia Bitter Liqueur, coffee and ginger liqueurs, pear brandy from Bartlett fruit grown by a local family orchard, and a rotating stack of experiments along the back wall. Twenty years in, still small-batch, still weird in the best way — the distillery that helped make Portland a spirits city.

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