Vancouver’s first distillery, Quartz Mountain opened in 2020 and now offers a young cask-strength bourbon, three gins, and fifteen flavored and unflavored vodkas. Quartz Mountain regularly rolls out new vodka flavors, and, as with many of Portland’s newer distilleries, expect whiskeys to continue to gain depth and character as they age in the barrel. The tasting room is open afternoons, Monday through Saturday, and offers distillery tours for those who schedule ahead.

Since 2019, Shine has offered a full dining experience with cocktails fueled by in-house spirits and a menu of elevated pub food classics like fish and chips, smoked salmon Cobb salad, and fried green tomatoes. You won’t just taste Shine’s spirits in the drinks: Many dishes feature the brand’s liquors in their preparation. Shine’s bottlings include pink hibiscus gin, a tequila-style agave spirit, and a filtered vodka. Dine and sip in Shine’s handsome dining room, order takeout cocktails, or join the party for its frequent drag brunches and bingos. Shine is open Wednesday through Sunday, with both an early and late happy hour.

Founded in 2013, Astoria’s Pilot House is an infant by Kentucky bourbon or Scotch standards, but positively mature measured by Oregon’s youthful distillery scene. Pilot House’s nautical-themed offerings include a tequila-style agave spirit, both American-style and London-style gins, an absinthe (wormwood included), and a single malt whiskey with each barrel “ocean aged” on a fishing boat. Take that, Kentucky. Portland tasting room and bottle shop hours vary, so calling ahead is recommended. Or swing by the more expansive Astoria or Cannon Beach tasting rooms open daily.

Based in Northwest Portland, Freeland launched in 2017 with a juniper and cucumber-forward London-style gin, soon followed by a bourbon and a rye-heavy Geneva gin, all poured from distinctive teardrop bottles. Sidle up to the mod, midcentury-style bar at Freeland’s distillery in Slabtown for gin flights, house cocktails, and light snacks like pita and hummus. Open daily with distillery tours every Friday at 3 p.m.

Aria Portland Dry Gin is an award-winning London-style gin, utilizing traditional gin ingredients and distillation techniques. The ten botanicals found in Aria produce a gin that is intended to help craft cocktails soar but serves up neat or straight over ice just as well. Unlike many Portland distilleries, Martin Ryan produces only gin — no vodkas, whiskies, or brandies. The Slabtown tasting room is open daily.

Kerns’s Aimsir opened in 2020, another example Portland’s growing distillery scene reaching outside of traditional “row” in inner Southeast. With a Gaelic name conveying time, weather, and place, Aimsir is still early in its spirits journey but has already achieved national acclaim for its Aitil gin, winning Best of Class Contemporary Gin in 2021 from the American Distilling Institute, and its bourbon, winning double gold from the 2022 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. These bottlings, along with aquavit, vodka, and more are poured in the gorgeous Art Deco Emerald Room open Wednesday through Saturday.

Each vodka from Wild Roots is distilled from corn and filtered five times over, then infused with more than a pound of locally grown fruit. The collection includes Washington apple and cinnamon, Oregon marionberry, and dark sweet cherry-infused vodkas. The more recently added gin collection includes cucumber-grapefruit as well as a more traditional London-style dry gin. Tasting are available in the bright and modern tasting room in the Central Eastside district Wednesday through Sunday.

Westward Whiskey, founded in 2004 by Aviation co-founder Christian Krogstad, offers nearly a dozen bottlings, including a subtly vanilla single malt, meatier stout cask finish, and ultra-smooth pinot noir cask finish — with certain bottles only available to its whiskey club members. Tours are available by appointment only (each featuring a welcome cocktail and a flight at the tour’s end), but tastings are open to walk-in visitors. Portland visitors who missed Westward on their tour can grab a tasting last minute at PDX before their flight.

Co-founders Erika and Sebastian Degens source local ingredients for their extensive line of handcrafted brandies, liqueurs, and whiskeys. Visit the distillery just south of Powell Boulevard to sample everything from a sour straight rye whiskey, a chocolaty dark roast rye the Degens aptly describe as “hoodie weather rye,” an assortment of fruit brandies and liqueurs, and the flagship green walnut liqueur, with its bitter green walnut flavor tempered with sour rye and soft-edged pinot noir brandy. The casual tasting room is an organic extension of the cozy distillery — sip on the patio on dry-weather days.

It’s a trek from Portland proper, but visiting this Wilsonville-based, family-owned distillery is worth the miles. The Ly family possess quite the lineage when it comes to distilling alcohol. With ties to both Vietnam and China, they’ve been producing spirits from family recipes for over seven generations, responsible for the first rice vodka and rice whiskey produced and bottled in the U.S. But Vinn is perhaps best known for its baijiu, a high-proof rice-based clear spirit with subtle toasty cereal notes. As a small family-run business, Vinn has no set hours but is typically open most afternoons — call to set up a tour or tasting.