What is 2bar?
2bar Spirits is a small craft distillery focused on being 100% handmade from local grains.

What’s your traction been like thus far?
We officially opened on Oct 20th, 2012 and in just over a year are in well over 180 locations; bars, restaurants and liquor stores.

Are you hiring?  If so, for what?
We are not, though we are always looking for volunteers to help mash, distill, bottle and label!

What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you started 2bar?
The intricacies involved in closing large corporate accounts is much more complicated that I anticipated.

What’s a hypothesis that you’ve had that has failed? And how did you respond?
That I could reliably and cost effectively self-distribute our products to our customers. As it turns out, we could, but it wasn’t in the best interest of the customer. They don’t want to contact one person for two skus. It just doesn’t work for them. We ended up partnering with a distributor that focuses on our type of business and they have helped us distribute our products. When we were evaluating which distributor to work with, I ended up polling all my customers as to which distributor they enjoyed working with the most. I ended up going with the clear choice (>80% choose one distributor).

What’s your favorite startup in Seattle? (Besides your own!)
The other distilleries that are launching in the area. We are seeing an explosion of new distilleries, all with different products and approaches and it is exciting to see them all come online.

What’s your favorite thing about being an entrepreneur?
Creating something from nothing. We take all local grain and make spirits; embodying the grain-to-glass approach!

What’s your favorite local sports team?
Sounders FC

If your company were an animal, what would it be and why?
Sasquatch… I want to become THE Northwest distillery for Vodka, Moonshine and Bourbon. Everyone know about Sasquatch and its relation to Northwest.

If you were to take 2bar on a date, where would it want to go?
Every bar in town! We need them all as customers 🙂