ABOUT

TIMO & ASHBY

Spirit Works Distillery, awarded Distillery of the Year by ADI in July 2020, was founded, in 2012 in the heart of Sonoma County in Sebastopol, California, by husband and wife team Timo and Ashby Marshall. The distillery is a highly respected and award-winning craft spirits producer which house-ferments, distills, and bottles handmade Vodka, Gin, Sloe Gin, Barrel Gin, Barrel Reserve Sloe Gin and the all four-year-old Straight Wheat, Straight Rye, and Four Grain Bourbon Whiskey onsite. Lead by one of the few female distilling teams in the U.S., Spirit Works Distillery is continually voted as Best Craft Distillery and Tasting Room in Sonoma County.

Timo comes from a small village in the southwest of England called Thurlestone. This is where his family has been refining their sloe gin recipe for generations. While they didn’t make their own gin from grain to glass, they did employ the traditional method of steeping sloe berries in gin, picked along the coastal hills. Ashby, on the other hand, is West Coast bred and has a deep passion and impressive palate for whiskey and its intricacies. She is thrilled to be the only distiller in her family.

Together, Timo and Ashby spent over 10 years working together for environmental non-profits while training folks in fast boat driving, IRATA climbing, and as sailing instructors. It is with this passion for the environment and working with their hands that you will find them at the distillery working side by side creating sustainable processes including mashing all organic grains, working the still, offering distillery tours, cleaning tanks, running the business and creating the best California distillery tasting room possible. They couldn’t do any of this without their incredible small staff of dedicated, passionate, mostly female producers of Vodka, Gin, Sloe Gin, Barrel Gin, Straight Wheat Whiskey, and Straight Rye Whiskey made batch by batch, grain to glass.

GRAIN-TO-GLASS

We control the production of our spirits from grain to glass, ensuring a quality product distilled from California grown organic Red Winter Wheat

OUR PROCESS

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1. Grain
It all begins with grain that we mill to a fine flour using our hammer mill which then goes into our mash tun.
2. Pitching Yeast
When milling and mashing are complete and conditions are right, we will pitch the yeast to begin fermentation.
3. Fermentation
Depending upon what product we are making, fermentation time will vary slightly but our robust distiller's yeast moves quickly.

4. Stripping Run
With fermentation complete, the mash will move to the pot still for a stripping run to remove as much of the alcohol as possible.
5. Finishing Run
The alcohol is then redistilled and cuts are made. We'll use the shorter column for whiskey or the taller for 190.
6. Barrel Aging
Our barrel aged products will come to rest in a 53 gallon, charred, new American White Oak barrel.