A Perfect fit

Nick Beasley was looking for an Oregon town with a very specific set of criteria to open his distillery.

The 24-year-old Portland native wanted to find a place that caters to tourists. That town had to be absent a distillery, and it had to have good, pure water from which to make his spirits.

After more than year, Beasley homed in on the perfect place.

“Sisters fit the bill,” Beasley said. “(Sisters) will make us stand out and make us a little bit unique and grab people’s attention when they come through.”

In May, Beasley and his 22-year-old sister, Katie, made good on his plan, opening Cascade Street Distillery’s tasting room at 261 West Cascade Avenue in downtown Sisters. And by doing so, he has brought Sisters the town’s only distillery.

Using a sustainable model that includes all-natural ingredients such as GMO-free corn, the distillery popped the cork on North Sister Vodka and South Sister Gin. And Beasley expects Cascade Street’s Broken Top Bourbon to be unveiled by October 2016. (When the three bottles are displayed just right the label will form a panorama of the Cascade Range.)

In addition, Cascade Street Distillery’s tasting room offers a selection of fruit-infused vodkas from Portland’s Wild Roots Spirits, where Beasley worked before branching out.

“We’re just trucking along trying to make sure that we make a quality spirit that people can enjoy,” Beasley said. “All of our ingredients we use are all natural, we use GMO-free corn, and of course we probably have the best water in the nation in Central Oregon.”

Beasley has big ambitions for his distillery, too.

Cascade Street has purchased and begun extensive renovations of a historic barn on Camp Polk Road, where production will take place.

The space should also help accommodate future growth, necessary since Beasley is hoping his spirits gain a regional, and eventually national, following.

If that sounds lofty, Beasley does not have to look far to find local companies to emulate. Breweries such as Bend’s Deschutes Brewery have done the same thing with beer.

“The Oregon craft distillery scene … it’s grown like crazy,” Beasley noted. “It is following in the same foot path as breweries are.

“When new distilleries open up and they’re making new products and interesting things that have never been made before, people get excited about that.”

In several ways, Cascade Street Distillery is a perfect fit for Sisters, said Caprielle Foote-Lewis, Sisters director for Economic Development for Central Oregon.

Foote-Lewis has helped Cascade Street settle in Sisters. Such a company helps boost Sisters’ tourism-dependent economy by adding a new attraction, and it adds production jobs, she said.

“It’s very exciting,” Foote-Lewis said. “It picks up our economy in two ways.”

For now, though, Beasley is concentrating on building his brand by emphasizing the attributes of his new Sisters home.

And the welcome from locals has been all he could have hoped.

“It’s been phenomenal,” Beasley said. “Everyone in town has gotten behind it, and they’re excited that there is a new place in town to drink at and brag about to their friends.”