How Whiskey Won Washington

Washington has a mixed history with liquor. Efforts to ban or restrict it date back to 1854, before the region even attained statehood, and “blue laws” remained on the books well into the twentieth century. Yet a modern craft distilling boom is happening in the Evergreen State, and our distillers have emerged as forerunners in the burgeoning American Single Malt revolution.

How did whiskey inspire both trouble and innovation? How did its import by settlers affect Indigenous communities and other groups? And how did whiskey play a role in the very creation of our state? Join author and journalist Becky Garrison as she distills the history of the barrel and the bottle in our state. Meet Jimmie Durkin, an enterprising saloon owner, and Roy Olmstead, a former Seattle cop turned gentleman bootlegger, and other fascinating figures who turned to the business of liquor.