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Bottle Hunting in the Pacific Northwest

Ron Gabbard

This time I ventured a little outside of the Pacific North-
west. Like many of you when I go on a Holiday, I spend
some time looking for new bottles for my collection (and
for other collectors too). Unlike many of you, sometimes
I go to an extreme. This years Vacation was to Yellow-
stone National Park. It is only a 12 hour drive from my
place to West Yellowstone Montana where we were stay-
ing. First and Foremost, Yellowstone is magnificent
place, from the wildlife, Waterfalls and thermal features
(geysers, Hot springs, mud pools etc.) It is a place I would
highly recommend visiting. But for us bottle collectors
there are no Mini bottles to be found. An Hour or so out
of West Yellowstone was a small distillery, Willies Distill-
ery but they had only plastic bottles (and we would have
had to wait an hour for them to open so I passed on it. )

However 6 1/2 hours away (and only
a 5 hour detour for us on the way
home) close to Glacier National Park
(another very scenic area) is Glacier
Distilling Company. They operate
out of The Whiskey Barn in Coram,
Montana. Getting the bottles I want-
ed was a bit of an adventure. I called
ahead to see what they had in Glass
Minis. 4 choices, 3 whiskies and an
Unaged spirit (Glacier Dew) plus an-
other infused unaged spirit in plas-
tic. (Mule Kick) I was able to talk
the production supervisor into bottling
the Mule Kick in glass for me. Then came
the next obstacle, Since they are a
“tasting bar” Montana State Law limits
the amount of Alcohol they can sell to a
person per day. The number of bottles I
wanted would exceed that, so they had to
presell them to me before I got there,
ringing up separate charges on 3 separate
days. The 5 hours of driving was scenic
(and lucky for me I have a wife who puts
up with my crazy bottle hunting ideas).
Although this is a fairly small distillery
they put out a wide range of products.

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