We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Keith Barnes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Keith, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

I have been working as a marketing, strategic and branding specialist for the spirits and beverage alcohol industry for the past 35 years. I was asked by a former client beverage alcohol client who had gone to work for an organic food producer to develop the brand and launch platform for a new product Being a proponent of organic agriculture and organic foods I accepted the invitation.

During this project I met the founder and product innovator of this company, Chuck Eggert. I was inspired by his motivation, tenacity and drive to extend organic production to food categories that currently had no organic production. I was also inspired by Chuck Eggert’s dedication to transparency and valuing WHERE and HOW the organic foods were grown, and how he made a point to work with small independent growers.

In 2004, after accessing the spirits and beverage alcohol field for organic products availability and finding very few players, I set out to determine if it was possible to produce organic whiskey of very high quality, something that could be considered “world class”. I set up a small distilling system and began conducting trials using a 20 gallon batch fermenting system and all copper pot still.

I discovered that distilling 100% organically would be very difficult as “craft distilling” was not yet “a thing” and that distilling organically would take a considerable amount of time to find sources of organic grain and trial the few available distilling yeast strains to determine their suitability and whether I could successfully propogate them using organic standards. 8 months in I had solved or worked around all impediments and was distilling batches of organic single malt barley whiskey.

To simulate what a fully barrel-aged whisky might taste like, I aged the new-make whiskey in new 1, 2 and 3 gallon barrels made from American white oak and charred to a level 3. Another 8 months on I began to sample the whiskies to gauge what level of success I might have achieved. This evaluation process brought about some changes to my distilling regimen and ingredient choices, and by 2007 I had achieved a good level of consistency and very positive feedback on the quality of the finished whiskey.

In 2008 the state in which I live, Washington, legalized small-scale distilling, and would allow distillers to sell their own products directly to the public from the distillery, or to restaurants, liquor stores and distributors. I wrote a business plan that would have me set up in a small distillery with the capacity to produce four 250 gallon batches per week. I selected Bainbridge Island as the site of the distillery due to is location within a quarter mile of a large body of salt water, the Puget Sound, and it’s maritime micro-climate.

Sourcing sufficient amounts of organic grain grown in Washington state (this factor was part of the original set of laws governing small distilling) was difficult. I enlisted the assistance of my friend Charley Pavlosky and we set out to locate small growers producing USDA Certified Organic grain, tracking down leads and rumors. We found our first grower on an organic farm on the Olympic Penninsula, and contracted for the purchase of half his production. We located suitable yeast strains in Scotland, Ireland and Canada and consulted distilling records from before World War II to understand the chemicals needed and techniques used before GMOs and modern biotech bacame the norm. We were set to go.

I will note that in 2008 “craft distilling” was still in its infancy. There were no true distilling technique texts and few distilling consultants specializing in the small end of the production spectrum. None of the distilleries at the time were distilling organically. I spent the first year mastering the machinery and starting to develop a style. And while creating an organic whiskey enterprise was a goal, the side benefits would be many. Firstly USDA Certified Organic grains taste better than their conventional counterparts. We can know exactly who grew them, where and under what conditions, which informs our distilling procedures. Second, much of the organic grain in production today was bred in the 60s or 70s, before genetic engineering and selective breeding to develop grains that could survive being sprayed with pesticides and weed killer while in the field. Third, using old technology, old seed varieties and low tech yeasts and enzymes allows us to participate in agriculture that does not degrade the soil by putting poisonous chemicals in to the environment. Lastly, following the organic platform would allow us to support smaller family farms and strengthen organic agriculture and the preference for locally produced food.

In April 2009, 1 year after beginning production, we sold our first bottle of USDA Certifies Organic spirit – a vodka. Our first whiskey was ready to sell by the winter Holidays 2010. During this time, and still today, our focus is to “sharpen the pencil” on our organic distillation, working the nuances of the process to eek out those last bits of flavor, using old school technology and technique to heighten the quality and to explore new recipes and formulas and to give evidence that organic distilling can produce world class spirits.

In February 2014 our vodka was named World’s Best Vodka from more than 1000 competitors in the World’s Best Spirits competition in London, and in April of 2014 our whiskey was named World’s Best Wheat Whiskey in the whisky arm of that same competition series. Since then our spirits have achieved more than 130 gold and double-gold awards in the most important international spirits competitions, including 7 World’s Best Wheat Whiskies, 6 Best American Grain Whiskies, Craft Whiskey of the Year in Whisky Advocate magazine and more.

Today Bainbridge Organic Distillers is the only USDA Certified Organic distillery in Washington making 100% of its spirits on-site, and one of a small number of USDA Certified/Compliant Organic distilleries in the world. We have come a long way in manifesting the vision and mission for Bainbridge Organic Distillers, and I feel that the best is yet to come.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Keith Barnes has been working in the beverage alcohol space for over 35 years. With the inception of Motive Marketing Group in 2001, he has spent the last 22 years working exclusively with spirits, wine and beer producers, marketers and retailers. He specializes in branding, in-store marketing, packaging, display and promotion innovation and has had the good fortune to work with some of the most celebrated and recognized alcohol brands in the world. Keith started his career in brand advertising but quickly recognized that the strategic and brand-centric approach employed in that discipline could be applied with great success to branded marketing and building the consumer franchise in the retail space. The pursuit of this process was the genesis of Motive.

He has also developed and produced award-winning and internationally recognized Whiskies, Gins and Vodkas in the craft distilling sector with his USDA Certified Organic distillery Bainbridge Organic Distillers. Which gives him a 360° view of the spirits and beverage alcohol landscape. Keith has also mentored and advised other small distilleries based on his wide and unique experience and success. The success garnered at Bainbridge gives strong evidence that the company’s goal of producing world-class distilled spirits organically is achievable and that using 100% certified ingredients is a sustainable and important business model.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Make a plan and stick to that plan, paying attention to the details, identify and magnify the most important aspects of your success, build products that people want to seek out. Always set the next goal and gauge your success and learn by by how you have achieved your past goals.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Take everything everyone says with a grain of salt.

In our first years we were given many nuggets of advice or opinions from experts. Some of them, such as “it’s impossible to make great whiskey following USDA Organic standards and using organic grain”, “you can’t make great whiskey using small barrels” and “you can’t make whiskey using THAT yeast, it’s not suitable for production” all were proven false when our whiskey was named World’s Best Wheat Whiskey in 2014 in the most prestigious and unbiased international whiskey competition in the world.

If something is so compelling it feels like you have to adapt the plan to incorporate it go ahead but stick to your goals and mission until you’ve proven yourself that it doesn’t work, or that you can’t make it work.

Contact Info:

• Website: bainbridgedistillers.com
• Instagram: bainbridgedistillers.com, myyearofwhiskies
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BainbridgeOrganicDistillers
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-barnes-16770a15/
• Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/biz_info/kHvcvN9_xoq0A79X_UGj5A