Cold River Vodka - Chris Dowe

I enjoyed getting to know Chris Dowe today, an Operating Principal and Head Distiller, at Cold River Vodka in Freeport. Cold River's other Operating Principal is Bob Harkins whose past professional life included U.S. Women's ski team coach. Cold River Vodka came to market in October of 2004 with an official launch meeting held at the Harraseeket Inn. Chris and Bob have a unique corner on the US vodka market in large part because of the copper pot still that you see in the photograph. The copper takes out the bitter sulphur compound and yields a vodka product with a "backbone" as Chris describes it. Cold River Vodka obtains fresh potatoes from Donnie Thibedeau's Green Thumb Farm in Fryeburg Maine. It takes about 11 days to produce 200 cases of Cold River vodka. Chris has extensive experience setting up microbreweries nationwide; so far Cold River is distributed in all the New England states including Delaware, Maryland, DC, South Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana and Florida. Just like the nationwide microbrewery movement that created strong demand for local beer, Cold River is part of the "craft distilling movement" comprised of a large number of small distilleries surfacing across the country. There were 60 new craft distilleries when Cold River came to market. Today there are 140. Chris says that the demographic for vodka drinkers is a high income 35 to 65 year old. Chris is originally from Windsor, Connecticut. He lived for a short period of time in Kennett Square, PA, known as the mushroom captial of the country where he sold medical office equipment. Today Chris and his wife live in New Gloucester which is close to Freeport and is a Maine town that has beautiful rural land and open space. For more information http://www.coldrivervodka.com/