Captive Spirits Distilling

There are some days when I just adore this photography gig of mine.

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

I met Holly from Captive Spirits Distilling at the Seattle Street Food festival, where she was handing out samples of their Bourbon Barreled Big Gin.

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

For those of you who aren’t into artisanal gins (which are booming in the Seattle area at present) then you should rectify that immediately. This stuff was insanely good – golden, citrusy and buttery smooth with smoky undertones of bourbon – and it makes for awesome cocktails. It seems that the rest of the world likes Captive Spirits’ gins too as they won some big deal awards last year, including a Gold Medal for Best Contemporary Gin in the International Wine & Spirits Competition for the Bourbon Barreled Big Gin, making it the first American gin to EVER win in the gin category. Their unaged Big Gin took a Silver in the same competition.

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

Captive Spirits’ story is all the more amazing when you realise that Holly and her husband Ben, together with their business partners and a small staff, craft the gin and market it worldwide from a small garage in Seattle’s Ballard neighbourhood, and I spent a wonderful morning there recently photographing the bottling process at the distillery.

It truly had everything to thrill a photographer’s heart – soft, creamy light, gleaming copper French stills, sparkling bottles, beardie hipsters, charming owners and Rosie, the world’s most photogenic dog. I could literally have stayed there photographing all day.

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

I was so inspired by their story that I pitched it to Edible Seattle which resulted in me taking the portrait above of Ben, Holly, Rosie the dog and the stills, Jean and Phyllis.

Captive Spirits Distilling - photography by www.paolathomas.com

It also led to me pitching and writing a round-up of artisan gin producers in the Seattle area for Seattle Refined. All of which appears to be leading me on a dangerous new craft spirits obsession. I will report back. 

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A New Dawn

 

A New Dawn photography by www.paolathomas.com

*Tap microphone* Is anyone out there?

I know it’s been forever and a day, but I’m back!

And hoping against hope that at least some of you will be able to find me.

Welcome one and all to ‘mirrormirror’s new home. Pull up a seat, have a slice of cake and make yourselves comfy.

I’ve spent the last few months working with the amazing Kaytlyn of Beneficial Design and the guys at Foliovision to design a lovely new online home and  transfer the old blog over from Typepad to WordPress  (yay! I now have widgets and stuff, and can do amazing things like, you know, reply to comments. )

I’ve even got a shiny new blog URL. Please add www.mirrormirrorblog.com to your blog address books.

It’s all still a bit of a work-in-progress, so if you spot any glitches, hitches, bugs or things which you really don’t like, please let me know.

And also, drumroll, do  you remember this post? Where I confessed that I wanted to be a food photographer? Well, I thought about it and worked on it and have spent the last few months pulling together a photography portfolio to match the blog. I’m so proud of this baby I want to burst. Come and check it out at www.paolathomas.com.

I’m going to do another post about my photography very soon where we can talk about it at more length. Suffice it to say for the moment that creating a photography portfolio is hard y’all (<—  my new favourite American word).

But that’s enough housekeeping. I’m just SO happy to be back and promise I’ll be blogging here regularly from now. I’ve missed you lovelies a heck of a lot.

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