Ryan Brennecke / The BulletinEmployees move containers of bottled water through the Earth2o facility in Culver on Thursday.

CULVER —

The owners of bottled water company Earth2o are joining together with the owners of Bend restaurant Zydeco Kitchen & Cocktails to create a new distillery in Culver that will draw on Jefferson County crops and its spring water.

The distillery called FTB, which stands for Farm To Bottle, will be housed in the original Earth2o plant, currently the company’s employee fitness center that also houses inventory, said Steve Emery, CEO and co-owner of Earth2o.

The plant was originally built in the 1920s to process potatoes, which will be the main ingredient in the distillery’s spirits. And the distillery will use water from Opal Springs, the same source for Earth2o bottled water, to produce its vodka, gin and bourbon, he said.

“Most of the distilleries in Oregon, they’re not making their own spirit,” he said. “They’re buying it. (FTB) will be high capacity, and our focus is on making the finest quality product we can, and it’s all going to be made, distilled, everything done right here in Culver.”

A new brewery, Luelling Orchard Brewing Co., that plans to make beer in Madras using locally-grown ingredients, was announced last month. And several Jefferson County farmers plan on malting the barley and wheat they grow, calling their business Mecca Grade Estate Malt.

Agriculture drives economic development in Jefferson County, where 2012 gross farm sales reached $74.3 million, while Crook and Deschutes counties reported $47.7 million and $26.1 million, respectively, according to Oregon State University data.

“Jefferson County is known worldwide for our crops, growing 85 percent of the world’s carrot seed, as well as many other specialty seeds, mint leaf for tea and several other crops,” Janet Brown, Jefferson County manager for Economic Development for Central Oregon, wrote in an email. “We also grow several varieties of grains, and, of course, potatoes, not only for spuds on the dinner table, but also for a quality vodka that will now be produced from local field crops by FTB Distillery.”

Believe it or not, Emery said, bottled water is an agricultural product. It’s regulated by the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Emery and his business partner acquired Earth2o in 2005. Since then, the company has grown five-fold, and millions of dollars — he would not be more specific — have been invested to increase production and make the bottling plant more environmentally friendly.

“Waste: There’s an environmental issue to it, and it’s also cash,” he said. “So, if we can invest and eliminate waste, then we improve our profitability and reduce our carbon footprint.”

In the past three years, the company has invested in five new molding machines, two that make tube-like preforms out of, roughly, BB-sized pieces of 100 percent post-consumer recycled material, and three that use air pressure to blow the preforms into bottles.

These allow the company to produce its own bottles at the Culver facility out of all-recycled material.

“First, we were buying bottles,” Emery said. “Then we were buying preforms. And now everything is vertically integrated in house.”

The company also finished installing a racking system in June. It allows the plant to hold three times as many bottles of water. It can now house 1,600 pallets, equivalent to a five-day supply at the plant.

Brown of EDCO said Earth2o, which currently employs about 75, adds jobs each year and increases local sales and distribution outside the region. She expects the addition of the FTB Distillery will add more family-wage jobs.

Emery said the goal is to begin construction on the distillery building next month. He hopes to start producing spirits by year’s end, but said that will depend on gaining approval from the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau and the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.

— Reporter: 541-617-7818,

rrees@bendbulletin.com