We have big news for our baby distillery. Founding Spirits received three major international distilling awards at the American Distilling Institute’s (ADI) 2018 Craft Spirits Conference: a GOLD medal for our Founding Spirits American Amaro, a BRONZE medal for our Founding Spirits Vodka, and ADI’s Best of 2018 win in the Certified Craft Blended Spirit category.

To guests in our restaurants – Founding Farmers, Farmers & Distillers, Farmers Fishers Bakers – our spirits have a become well-known and beloved by many on our drinks menu. Our craft vodka is a favorite in many of our handmade cocktails. We are all thrilled to be recognized beyond our walls for how we have taken our company’s scratch-made mission and craft cocktail wizardry into distilling some very tasty and apparently award-winning spirits. We think this is a pretty big deal for our barely-a-year-old distillery.

Known as The Voice of Craft Distilling, every year the American Distilling Institute (ADI) hosts a Judging of Craft Spirits, which includes U.S. and international entries in a range of categories. In addition to being named ADI’s Best of 2018, our Founding Spirits American Amaro won GOLD in the Certified Craft Blended Spirit category for an herbal/botanical/spice liqueur; and our Founding Spirits Vodka won BRONZE in the Certified Distilled Spirit vodka category.

Our Founding Spirits team was excited to venture west to Portland, OR to receive these prestigious awards. They had the opportunity to meet and share distilling tales with craft distillers from across the globe. This included a lot of discussions about the latest and greatest in distilling, and of course, a bit of sipping and sampling too.   

The American Distilling Institute is dedicated to running rigorous and professional spirit judging that strives to promote craft distillers and blenders that are producing the finest quality, artisan spirits and to give participating producers valuable, unbiased, third-party feedback on the quality and process of their spirits. Their annual judging program accepts entries in all classes and categories of craft spirits from small, independently owned distillers, blenders, bitters makers, and producers of aperitif and fortified wines. U.S. and international entries are tasted blind and evaluated by expert panels of judges made up of distillers, journalists, bar owners, bartenders, retailers, wholesalers, distributors, and importers. All spirits entered receive written tasting notes and are considered for awards both for the spirit itself and the packaging.