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Toby Foster's dream of building Alaska's only distillery took five years to realize.
PHOTO BY ROB STAPLETON
PHOTO BY ROB STAPLETON
New Distillery Turns Spuds Into Spirits
By John R. Moses
ALASKA PIONEER PRESS
PALMER – The “Spirit of Alaska” may be an overused phrase best saved for cruise ship
commercials, but one Alaskan’s business is breaking new ground as far as Alaska’s bottled
spirits are concerned. Toby Foster’s Glacier Creek Distillery is turning Matanuska Valley
potatoes and pure glacial waters into a literally homegrown product called Permafrost
Vodka.
The spirit took center stage during Fur Rondy events in Anchorage when one night spot
opened an “Ice Bar” and sold the high-end drink for a few bucks a shot in a glass made of
-- what else?—ice.
In mid-March, Foster’s label inked an agreement with distributor K&L, which should break
Permafrost into not only the wider Alaska market, but also into Washington, Oregon, Idaho
and maybe even California -- eventually. Next on the menu is release of vodka infused with
natural Alaska berries.
“It’s a niche market that we’re in,” Foster said. “A lot of this is uncharted territory.”
The problem with this flood of success is that there is only so much Permafrost to go
around, and the new, expanded distillery is still just on paper. But even when it’s built and
producing more vodka than the first, small facility, Foster said the business won’t leave
much of an environmental footprint. The goal it to be completely off the grid and producing
byproducts that help run the on-site generators and provide farmers with feed stock.
Eco-friendly
Alaska’s only distillery is an eco-friendly affair and homegrown in every sense of the word.
Its workers refine and fine-tune their hand-crafted product in a building near Four Corners
and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.
“It’s a small barn that I built myself,” Foster said. His goal was 500 bottles a year. The
reality is 1,000 bottles a month. “I ended up quitting my day job and doing this full-time,”
Foster said.
“A lot of care and attention goes into each bottle,” said Foster, a former medivac pilot and
hobby home beer brewer who began this venture five years ago. Foster, an Anchorage
native and Valley resident, is the public face of the firm but he isn’t alone. His partners are
his wife, Scotti MacDonald, and longtime friends from the aviation industry Shawn Ansley
and Winston Chelf.
Foster and MacDonald have four children. He said the boys sometimes peel potatoes and
the girls are set to work placing stickers on flyers.
Permafrost’s professional distiller is Theo Grader. “He’s taken us to a higher level,” Foster
said.
Artesian micro-distillery
Already on sale at such high-profile locations as the Captain Cook Hotel, Alyeska Resort,
Millennium Hotel and famed Anchorage watering hole Humpy's, it’s also on the shelves in
many liquor chains. It sells for about $50 per bottle retail.
There are reasons for that price tag, which would be higher by comparison to many
brands even if the state didn’t pile huge taxes on hard alcohol.
“The distillation process takes 508 hours, start to finish, as it is hand crafted drop by
drop,” the company’s Web site declares. The vodka is 80-proof and Foster said the month
and a half it takes between potato-peeling and drop-by-drop distillation is worth every
moment.
Foster said he runs an artesian micro-distillery. He uses “only Alaskan grown potatoes and
glacier waters collected from the source to create a uniquely Alaskan spirit.”
“Water is what makes awesome vodka,” Foster said. “We have fantastic water up here.”
The potatoes, thanks to long days in the arctic sun, have perfect starch levels to create the
complex sugars needed for the process.
Distillation causes creation of many things, including ethanol and methanol. Foster’s
process sends the methanol – a substance used to fuel some race cars -- to power the
distillery’s generators. Ethanol is what one wants in a spirit, but methanol is among the
chief culprits in the creation of a hangover -- along with poor choices, perhaps.
As to the nuts and bolts, Permafrost Vodka is triple distilled and filtered five times for ultra
purity. This process reduces congeners, impurities left in some mass-produced spirits that
decrease the purity and taste while adding to the unpleasant effects of imbibing.
Unused potatoes from the process become compost. Clients who serve Permafrost are
asked to save the unique, heavier than average bottles for recycling and re-use by the
distillery.
Foster lists some things that make his business unique:
The distillery is Alaska owned and operated, and the sole such distillery in the state.
Each bottleful of vodka is handcrafted “drop by drop with the utmost attention to quality
and purity.”
The facility is a “green distillery. Along with accepted low impact business practices, we
compost used potatoes for the gardens at the plant site and we sell the remaining excess
potatoes to local farmers as a feedstock.”
It also produces its own bio-fuel to run the distillery’s generator.
Glacier Creek Distillery is also what Foster calls a community orientated company -- 10%
of all profits go to local charities.
Foster said he’s not out to make a product that people will abuse. Even his Web site urges
people to drink responsibly, and with friends. The price tag of the ultra-premium product
should also discourage wanton consumption.
By John R. Moses
ALASKA PIONEER PRESS
PALMER – The “Spirit of Alaska” may be an overused phrase best saved for cruise ship
commercials, but one Alaskan’s business is breaking new ground as far as Alaska’s bottled
spirits are concerned. Toby Foster’s Glacier Creek Distillery is turning Matanuska Valley
potatoes and pure glacial waters into a literally homegrown product called Permafrost
Vodka.
The spirit took center stage during Fur Rondy events in Anchorage when one night spot
opened an “Ice Bar” and sold the high-end drink for a few bucks a shot in a glass made of
-- what else?—ice.
In mid-March, Foster’s label inked an agreement with distributor K&L, which should break
Permafrost into not only the wider Alaska market, but also into Washington, Oregon, Idaho
and maybe even California -- eventually. Next on the menu is release of vodka infused with
natural Alaska berries.
“It’s a niche market that we’re in,” Foster said. “A lot of this is uncharted territory.”
The problem with this flood of success is that there is only so much Permafrost to go
around, and the new, expanded distillery is still just on paper. But even when it’s built and
producing more vodka than the first, small facility, Foster said the business won’t leave
much of an environmental footprint. The goal it to be completely off the grid and producing
byproducts that help run the on-site generators and provide farmers with feed stock.
Eco-friendly
Alaska’s only distillery is an eco-friendly affair and homegrown in every sense of the word.
Its workers refine and fine-tune their hand-crafted product in a building near Four Corners
and the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.
“It’s a small barn that I built myself,” Foster said. His goal was 500 bottles a year. The
reality is 1,000 bottles a month. “I ended up quitting my day job and doing this full-time,”
Foster said.
“A lot of care and attention goes into each bottle,” said Foster, a former medivac pilot and
hobby home beer brewer who began this venture five years ago. Foster, an Anchorage
native and Valley resident, is the public face of the firm but he isn’t alone. His partners are
his wife, Scotti MacDonald, and longtime friends from the aviation industry Shawn Ansley
and Winston Chelf.
Foster and MacDonald have four children. He said the boys sometimes peel potatoes and
the girls are set to work placing stickers on flyers.
Permafrost’s professional distiller is Theo Grader. “He’s taken us to a higher level,” Foster
said.
Artesian micro-distillery
Already on sale at such high-profile locations as the Captain Cook Hotel, Alyeska Resort,
Millennium Hotel and famed Anchorage watering hole Humpy's, it’s also on the shelves in
many liquor chains. It sells for about $50 per bottle retail.
There are reasons for that price tag, which would be higher by comparison to many
brands even if the state didn’t pile huge taxes on hard alcohol.
“The distillation process takes 508 hours, start to finish, as it is hand crafted drop by
drop,” the company’s Web site declares. The vodka is 80-proof and Foster said the month
and a half it takes between potato-peeling and drop-by-drop distillation is worth every
moment.
Foster said he runs an artesian micro-distillery. He uses “only Alaskan grown potatoes and
glacier waters collected from the source to create a uniquely Alaskan spirit.”
“Water is what makes awesome vodka,” Foster said. “We have fantastic water up here.”
The potatoes, thanks to long days in the arctic sun, have perfect starch levels to create the
complex sugars needed for the process.
Distillation causes creation of many things, including ethanol and methanol. Foster’s
process sends the methanol – a substance used to fuel some race cars -- to power the
distillery’s generators. Ethanol is what one wants in a spirit, but methanol is among the
chief culprits in the creation of a hangover -- along with poor choices, perhaps.
As to the nuts and bolts, Permafrost Vodka is triple distilled and filtered five times for ultra
purity. This process reduces congeners, impurities left in some mass-produced spirits that
decrease the purity and taste while adding to the unpleasant effects of imbibing.
Unused potatoes from the process become compost. Clients who serve Permafrost are
asked to save the unique, heavier than average bottles for recycling and re-use by the
distillery.
Foster lists some things that make his business unique:
The distillery is Alaska owned and operated, and the sole such distillery in the state.
Each bottleful of vodka is handcrafted “drop by drop with the utmost attention to quality
and purity.”
The facility is a “green distillery. Along with accepted low impact business practices, we
compost used potatoes for the gardens at the plant site and we sell the remaining excess
potatoes to local farmers as a feedstock.”
It also produces its own bio-fuel to run the distillery’s generator.
Glacier Creek Distillery is also what Foster calls a community orientated company -- 10%
of all profits go to local charities.
Foster said he’s not out to make a product that people will abuse. Even his Web site urges
people to drink responsibly, and with friends. The price tag of the ultra-premium product
should also discourage wanton consumption.