Ved Elven Distillery
Opening TBD*
* due to factors outside of our control, it remains unclear when we’ll be able to begin operations. fingers crossed!
Ved Elven Distillery melds tradition and innovation to produce grain-to-glass spirits from the bounty of the Pacific Northwest.
Located in Kalama, Washington.
Our name means ‘by the river’ in Norwegian, which speaks to our Scandinavian heritage and to the importance of our place on the Columbia River.
Kockritz Hotel Bar in Kalama (c. 1900)
At Ved Elven, we are helping to revive a nearly extinct type of still known as a
Three Chamber Still.
It is a curious type of still that emerged in the 1800s and then vanished not too long after Prohibition. Spirits historian David Wondrich describes the three chamber still as “a sort of bolt-action rifle to the pot still’s muzzle loader and the column still’s machine gun.” It was extremely popular for the production of rye whiskey— some estimates suggest more than 70% of the spirit from this period. According to a 1933 journal article, rye distillers preferred the three chamber still because it produced “a better grade of heavy bodied and highly flavored whiskey.”