Local spirits: Moses Lake Distillery begins pouring for the public

MOSES LAKE — As the sun set on Moses Lake behind Midway Pub on Broadway Avenue, patrons could catch Zachary Hughes, owner of Moses Lake Distillery, in the back pouring his trademark wheated bourbon, rye bourbon and silver rum.

Unlike the rum, bourbon needs at least two to three years to age before it’s ready to drink, Hughes said. Having just opened up shop in April, he didn’t have the time to wait.

In this way, Saturday’s batch of bourbon is like a prototype to one fully made in the Moses Lake Distillery house, he said. Coming from Liberty Call Distilling Co. in San Diego, Hughes used an aged base from there before blending in his own recipe.

The blend, however, is about as local as it gets. For his wheated bourbon, he pulled wheat from his wife’s family farm outside of Coulee City, he said.

2020 might not have been the best year to get a business up and running, but for Hughes the timing worked out pretty well, he said. There was a ton of licensing and preparation work he needed to get done while the world was shut down. By the time businesses started opening up again, he was on track to join them.

Originally from Ohio, Hughes joined the U.S. Marines outside of high school and traveled around, he said. After spending nine years in Hawaii, he learned about distilling from his friend and co-owner of Liberty Call in San Diego, he said, and was instantly hooked.

Hughes was fascinated by sampling at different stages of the process and seeing how time affected the brew, he said. He loved experimenting with different mash bills and grains and taking note on how changing single variables changed the overall product. So much so, he started spending most of his free time at the distillery.

When he and his wife made the move to Moses Lake, Hughes noticed there wasn’t a distillery and decided to go for it, he said.

The town is different from anywhere else he’s lived, he said.

“I just kind of fell in love with all the agriculture and just the community over here,” he said. “It was something that was completely different from any big city I’ve lived in or anything. I felt there’s a lot of pride in Moses Lake for it, and I felt it was a cool place to have a business named after the town.”

Hughes has been moving around for these pop-up tasting rooms, such as the one at Midway Pub, as he didn’t want to start one from scratch, he said. In January, the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board revised its taproom policies, and the options opened wide.

Because Squirrel Fight Artisan Brewing at 530 W. Valley Road, Suite N, has such a big space for its brewery, Hughes was working with it to create the whiskey mash at the brewery to be later distilled at his distillery, he said. The new law, too, allows shared tasting rooms, as well as cocktails.

By mid-August, Moses Lake Distillery will be set up for a dual taproom at Squirrel Fight, he said.

“That was a game changer for it, because it’s kind of cool,” he said. “We wanted to have one area, almost like a destination, where people could come and do a beer flight or a whiskey flight or a rum flight, try some liquor and try some cocktails with it.”

Hughes plans to continue his involvement with the community, he said. This fall, liquor enthusiasts can catch him at the Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation’s Craft Out Cancer event, as well as Downtown Moses Lake Association’s Downtown Sip & Stroll.