Updated March 14, 2023

Kim Karrick had a vision when she started Scratch Distillery: make one vodka and two gins, using organic, non-GMO materials from local farmers. Had she known that the demand for her small batch gin and vodka would be so high, and that the local cocktail bars and breweries had ideas of their own, she might have foreseen the explosive and almost immediate growth in her distillery.

“We can’t curb the creativity,” she said. “There is just too much demand in Edmonds. Between all of our great local restaurants and bars. It has really come alive.”

Much of that creativity comes from Kim, but also in collaborations with the talented bartenders in the neighboring cocktail bars. Over the years they have teamed up to create new spirits and cocktail recipes. With the local brewery Salish Sea Brewing (two Edmonds locations, the Brewpub and the Boathouse) they created Bier Schnaps, distilling down a special beer into a unique spirit. 

Scratch now makes eight vodkas, four gins, two aquavits, an award-winning whiskey, several liqueurs, not to mention creative special releases. Join the Spirits Club to be the first to get to try them! They have a loyal following. Their members and others also take GINiology classes, learning the fine art of cocktail mixology. GINiology graduates craft a personalized gin recipe, tailored to taste — it’s a gin recipe they can reorder from the distillery.

"At GINiology, after a classic cocktail to start the evening, we’ll tell you about the history and production of gin. And then we taste. We have distilled more than 30 separate botanicals that are used to make most of the gins in the world, so you can taste each flavor independently. By deconstructing gin in this way, you can discover which botanicals make your mouth happy [website].”

Edmonds Own Whiskey is an 83-proof, single-barrel whiskey made with 100 percent Skagit Valley old world grains of spelt, millet, winter white wheat and malted barley. They call it a “new-world whiskey from an old-world recipe.” Since its first year release it has consistently won medals from Sip Magazine’s "Best of the Northwest" competition. 

“The judges were like ‘who are these people and where did this whiskey come from!?',” said Sip Magazine reviewer Kristin Ackerman Bacon in a video review.

The whiskey is aged for two years in a new American oak barrel, offering up a “lovely richness and smoothness” from the oak. It’s perfect neat, as Bryan Karrick prefers it. Bryan is Kim’s husband and co-owner of Scratch. It would also be “killer” in a Manhattan or Old Fashioned, as Bacon notes.

Spop by Scratch Distillery for a tasting or a cocktail, visit Salish Sea Brewing, or visit Brigid’s Bottleshop or Arista Wine Cellars. And enjoy a cocktail at any one of the truly stellar cocktail bars and destination restaurants in Edmonds. 

Edmonds, says Kim, is “a wonderful, dynamic liquid arts community.” We can drink to that!