Table of Contents:
WHISKEY GOES WEST.
BONE DRY
THE FIRST TWO HUNDRED
SPIRITS TODAY
DISTILLERIES
Wines of Alaska, Alaska Beer. Taste Alaska
Fire-Water.
The First People probably made some beverage by distilling or fermenting, but it would have been for ceremonial occasions.
You might think that the Russians were importing the first alcoholic spirits to Russia, America. They were not. By the time they make it to Alaska’s mainland from the Aleutians, the locals are drinking rum. Rum? That’s from the Caribbean. And Central America and the British colonies in North America.
When James Cook sails along the coast of Alaska in 1778, he is the first from the east. Many British and American explorers pushing north and west follow. Spanish explorers would go as far as southeast Alaska, but no further. These explorers were soon trading rum from Central America with the natives.
By the time the Russian-American Company arrives in Sitka (1804) to build a settlement, there is a drinking problem.
The Russians did not arrive with vodka. Vodka would not be a favorite drink in Russia until the mid-1800s when the state was producing it. They would recommend people drink their vodka. When the government loses its monopoly on vodka production (circa 1863), prices plummet. Now it becomes the drink of all the people.
So the Russians arrive with wine from France and rum they are buying from the British colonies.
They are selling supplies, including liquor, to sailors, whalers, traders, and prospectors.
As the profits from the fur industry begin to drop from over-hunting, they start trading with the indigenous people. They exchange rum, vodka, and brandy for furs, ivory, and the company of the females.
A Change in the Lower 16 States.
The British start (heavily) taxing Caribbean rum and the molasses for making it. This fee puts a significant crimp on alcoholic consumption in the American states. There are over 100 distilleries in the U.S. using Caribbean molasses at this time.
At the same time, brand new states Tennessee and Kentucky, find they have a surplus of corn. They, and the territories west and north of them (corn belt) cannot ship it without it spoiling. However, if they distill it, it keeps much longer.
In short, there was too much corn. So whiskey was extraordinarily cheap and extremely available. Americans could not get enough. By 1810 there were 14,000 distilleries in the U.S. and only one new state.
Whiskey on the Go-Go.
The 1848 California gold rush brings a mass of people to the west. Although there were bars in California before this time, the need for more rose quickly. Two years later, California becomes a state.
The next year Portland Oregon and Seattle, Washington, become cities. They have already been significant trading posts for years, first receiving the rum coming up from Central America. Now they are getting whiskey from back east.
The west coast is filling with people and whiskey.
Then in 1861, westward expansion stops and all eyes look east. The Civil War begins. Four years later, the war is over, and America goes into a healing period.
Two years after the war is over, the United States buys Alaska from the Russians. A few explorers and prospectors go up to see what it is all about. Soon it is yesterday’s news.
1869 and two trains meet in Utah. The first transcontinental train links the country. Within ten years, there will be several more. People and products begin moving west again.
In the same year, although it is illegal, The Sitka Saloon, One Bit, and others openly advertise alcohol in Sitka. These are probably some of the very first bars in Alaska.
What Does Any of This Have to Do With Alaska Spirits?
Before the Russians sell Alaska, they were already losing interest in it. Due to overhunting, many of the animal species were near extinction. When they start losing money, many people return to Russia. When Russia sells the land, even more go home.
The economy drops. With nothing to trade, fewer boats are coming to Alaska. Life in Alaska is pretty dull for its 33,000 residents.
The U.S. Treasury Department takes authority over the Territory of Alaska circa 1877. Immediately, they allow the importation and making of beer and wine. This decree is excellent news in an area where grapes don’t grow. However, they do not allow the distilling of spirits. They also make selling alcohol to Alaska Natives illegal. The only part of this law they partially enforce until the 1950s.
Legend says the Sitka soldiers show Alaska Natives to add molasses and yeast to their traditional bark and berry beverage. The results, after fermenting and distilling, was something close to a liquid tranquilizer.
Legend says this took place in the Tlingit village of Hootchenoo near present-day Angoon. They name the drink after the town. But with the village name too long to pronounce, even when sober, they shorten the name to “hooch.”
Then in 1880, something sparkles in a creek near what will be Juneau. They hear about it as far away as San Francisco. Prospectors begin making their way to Alaska. Close behind them are the people who support them, suppliers, barbers, prostitutes, and brewers.
At first, many establishments are nothing more than tents. Bars are importing beer and whiskey from the lower states. Within a year, the bar owners can build wooden structures with the latest features.
The U.S. attempts civil government in Alaska circa 1884. They prohibit alcohol except for medicinal, mechanical, and scientific purposes. This law is just as successful as the one in 1877.
The Big Boom to Alcohol.
1896 and word comes from the Klondike. There’s enough gold for everyone. The town of Skagway appears overnight. It is at the trailhead to the White Pass leading to the Klondike. Estimates are that over 100,000 people will pass through Skagway heading for the Yukon.
By 1898, there are 50 saloons in Skagway alone. Within a year, that number will go to 80. Maybe that’s not unusual for a town three blocks wide and eight blocks long. The drink of choice is whiskey. What is interesting is that alcohol is still illegal in the Alaska territory. Usually, the officials would look the other way while sipping their beers.
Many bars are making their own beer. Breweries also open to supply the bars with beer. The Skagway Brewing Company is one of the larger ones. Soon there is conflict because the local bars are pushing their beer instead of the beer from the local brewery. And them Seattle’s Rainer (and later Olympic’s) Beer begins arriving on the docks. It is a beer from “home” that the new residents recognize. A beer storm forms between the three interests, import beer, local breweries, and the bars making their own.
Scenes similar to this are taking place in Juneau, Nome, Fairbanks, and smaller gold towns. But none on the scale of Skagway.
If You Can’t Make it Illegal, Make it Legal.
The Internal Revenue Service begins to take notice of Alaska. They issue tax stamps for alcohol dealers.
In early 1899, a new law goes into effect requiring all Alaska liquor dealers to buy a $1,000 license fee. Timing is everything. The Klondike rush is over. People are already drifting back through Skagway on the way to other places. By April of that year, only 12 bars are still open after the law goes into effect.
It is finally legal to make, sell, and consume alcohol in the Alaska Territory.
Charles Sacke, a brewer from Seattle, owns the Skagway City Brewery and can afford the license. He partners with Albert Reinert, fresh off the boat from Seattle, and purchases the Mascotte building. At the time, it is one of the fanciest saloons in town. They remodel the interior widening the hall until it takes up the whole ground floor. They add the newest conveniences, bring in more tables, and open a cigar stand. And they shorten the name to the Mascot.
Sache is brewing pilsner beer and selling his label of whiskey. However, the whiskey was not a local product. He buys barrels of rye whiskey from John Gibson’s Son and company in Pennsylvania. When it arrives, he bottles it with his own label.
Reinert buys the bar, and Sacke heads to the Yukon to find his next adventure. Reinert keeps the Mascot running until 1916. He is continuously remodeling and upgrading, even adding a family entrance—a fancy term for take out. The woman can buy beer or whiskey to take home. Proper ladies do not go into a saloon.
The National Park Foundation acquires and preserves the Mascot in 1976. At the southeast corner of Broadway and Third Avenue, you can see the saloon from its early 1900s days. Unfortunately, they do not have a liquor license. If you can’t have a pitcher, at least stop by for a picture.
The Other Shoe Drops.
The rush to the Yukon is over, and the liquor laws go into effect. What else can happen? The next year, they finish the White Pass and Yukon Railroad, built to take miners and supplies into the Yukon initially.
The hit comes when the alcohol drinking workmen who were building the railroad leave town.
Women Put their Feet Down.
The Temperance movement has been building for many years. After the 1898 rush is over, they begin restoring decorum to Alaska. Circa 1903, saloons start closing on Sundays. Next, women can no longer go into bars, even via a “family entrance.”
A 1913 amendment gives the women of the Alaska Territory the right to vote. It will take another seven years for the rest of the unites States.
Then in 1916, the women of Alaska rock the vote. Under the Bone Dry Law, the territory of Alaska bans alcohol. Two years before the United States will pass the Eighteenth Amendment banning alcohol.
Alaska Is Completely Dry (Wink wink.)
Because of its location and lack of funding for effective law enforcement ( it’s still a territory,) prohibition is a suggestion. Those who believe in it follow it to the letter. Bootlegging and moonshining become incredibly lucrative to those who don’t.
The bottles of (illegal) Alaska spirits are easier to move than kegs, soar.
For Southeast Alaska, alcohol flows across the border from Canada, who is not participating in prohibition. Fleets of fishing boats find a second income on moonless evenings.
The Alaska Panhandle, with few lawmen, has stills running its length. Anchorage, Chickaloon, Fairbanks, McCarthy, Nenana, Nome, Tanana, and Wasilla get a reputation for their local brews.
There are “soft drink” parlors and pool halls that become very popular. Anchorage, with a population of about 1,900, may have had as many as forty such establishments. Tunnels connect many of these. Just outside of Anchorage is Bootleggers Cove. Coincidence?
Alaska Spirits, the First Two Hundred Years.
If you have a lot of time on your hands, read back through everything above. Count how many times the term “legal distillation of spirits” appears. The quick answer is zero.
To distill spirits, you need corn or grain. Alaska is not a grain or corn growing territory in those days. So any ingredients for distilling you need to bring in. Corn, essential to whiskey, does not keep long. However, in a liquid form, it travels very well.
Up until prohibition, there are no (legal) commercial distilleries in Alaska. All Alaska spirits come from somewhere else.
Post-Prohibition.
In April of 1933, the United States repeals prohibition. In Alaska, still a territory, by 1934, they can drink legally, except the natives. But they cannot drink in public. Communities must vote on whether to allow the dispensing of hard alcohol or not. These “dispensaries” must go by the name “cocktail bar.”
In the large towns, beer starts arriving from the States. Some of the smaller communities are not so quick to pull the stopper out.
Towards the end of the 1930s, something happens that will change Alaska’s alcohol history more than the gold rushes. The threat of war is in the air. Military build-up begins in airbases, harbors big enough for supply and troopships, and fortifications. The Aleutian islands become a string of anti-aircraft bunkers. A 1942 highway finally connects Alaska to the Lower 48 states. With the increase in people (construction workers) comes an increase in the number of bars, especially around Anchorage and Fairbanks.
By 1942, America is in the war, and more than 30,000 service people head to Alaska. At the end of the war, many of them stay. There were approximately 60,000 residents in the state in the early thirties. Soon after the end of the war, that number climbs over 100,000.
In 1953 Alaska Natives can finally purchase and consume alcohol legally. Six years later, Alaska eventually becomes a state.
1959 and there’s a brand new state. But not one Alaska brewery or distillery.
The 1968 discovery of oil near Prudhoe Bay brings another rush of alcohol-drinking construction workers to Alaska. There are still no breweries or distilleries making Alaska spirits.
1979 and the legislature revises alcohol laws, allowing communities to prohibit the sale and importing of alcoholic beverages. To this day, there are dry counties and towns in Alaska.
Alaska Spirits Today.
Any breweries in sight? Are there any distilleries?
Would you start an alcoholic beverage company in Alaska?
- The dry counties limit the size of the local market.
- The mass immigration of people to Alaska in the last 50 years were Americans looking for brands they knew. There were no artesian beers or liquors in the 1970s.
- In the 1970s, Alaskan farmers are not growing excessive crops of grain for alcohol production. There is no corn.
You would need to be crazy to open up a brewery or distillery against these odds.
Finally, in 1986, a young couple in Juneau, using what little information they can find from the 1900s, start brewing. Today, there are close to 40 breweries.
But What About Distilleries?
This first legal (successful) distillery making Alaska spirits seems to date to 2012. The history is vague.
It is not until 2014 that the State of Alaska allows distilleries to have tasting rooms.
Working with local farmers in the Mat-Su, Delta Junction, and other areas, they are starting to get local grains. Also potatoes, and other ingredients. Corn needs a ground temperature in the 70s. That doesn’t happen consistently in Alaska, but they are working on other possibilities.
Unfortunately, some of the new pioneers were not able to make a go of it. One distillery is possibly now in Nevada, where government restrictions must be less restrictive. Some have become part of other distilleries. I tip my hat to those who gave it a try.
Today, (2019), there are nine distilleries in the state. Between them, they are producing Whiskey, Bourbon, Rye Whiskey, Gin, Vodka, Rum, and a few other liquors.
When you go to Alaska, please support them.
Distilleries.
- Fairbanks Distilling Company (Fairbanks) – is in the old city hall since starting in 2012. The make Alaskan potato vodka using only Yukon Gold potatoes.
- Port Chilkoot Distillery (Haines) – began serving the public in 2013. Their Gin, Bourbon, Rye, Vodka, and Absinthe are signature products.
- Ursa Major Distilling (Fairbanks) – has been distilling (commercially) since 2013. They have vodka from barley, gin, and rums. I think they have some more Alaska.
- Anchorage Distillery (Anchorage) – has been in business since 2015. They can source all their ingredients in Alaska. They specialize in vodkas and gin.
- Amalga Distillery (Juneau) – began distilling gin in 2016. Their Alaskan Single Malt Whiskey should be ready by 2020.
- Arctic Harvest (North Pole) – is an actual farm to table operation. Since 2017, they grow the grain and process it for their whiskey, vodka, and moonshines. The town of North Pole is between Fairbanks and Denali.
- Skagway Spirits
Distillery (Skagway) – since 2017, specializes in vodka and gin. - Hoarfrost Distilling (Fairbanks) – began distilling in 2017. Their specialty is vodkas for sipping.
- Alaskan Spirits Distillery (Anchorage) – Since 2018, they are making potato and flavored vodkas.
Alaska Spirits Summary.
Those distilling Alaska spirits are a small but spunky group. As the farmers work with them figuring out new ways to expand the growing season for grains, potatoes, and corn, I am sure more distilleries will emerge, and these will grow. With almost 40 craft breweries in Alaska, it seems there is a market for alcoholic beverages.
Many of the new Alaska spirits are using clear glacial water. As the distillers learn to use even more local ingredients, you will certainly get a 100% Alaskan taste.