Sultan, Washington’s Curtson Distillery turns bad beer into beautiful whiskey
Ask Robert Thompson about his spirits and distilling process, then step back and settle in. He’s got a lot to say.
Thompson, who owns Curtson Distillery in Sultan, Washington with his wife, Malinda Curtis, can talk distilling and spirits for hours. His do-it-yourself setup in an old gas station garage repair shop is a lesson in what can be done with human intuition, roll-up-your-sleeves hard work and an engineering mind.
“I like to experiment with new ways of doing things,” Thompson says.
Curtson Distillery is a play on the couple’s last names, Curtis and Thompson.
Thompson spends a lot of his time tinkering at the former gas station. His passion is creating spirits that are flavorful and smooth on the palate.
More than that, though, he loves to work on his distilling system, finding new ways to be more efficient and better ways to increase flavor in the aging process. The 100-gallon still Thompson purchased from Olympic Distilling now sits where customers once talked struts and brakes for nearly a century.
Robert Thompson talks about the different alcohols aging in barrels. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
His shop has old pumps he’s repurposed into the engine of his cooling systems and computerized control systems that Thompson designed – patent pending — and dozens of barrels, both wood and metal. There are also huge plastic vats awaiting liquids, wood staves repurposed from old barrels he uses to imbue flavor into his spirits and even a mini race car he built for his grandson. That last one seems quite at home by the roll-up doors.
Thompson’s background in IT systems is evident everywhere you look.
His favorite part of the tour is a large industrial cabinet that looks like it once housed tools for making your Chevy road-worthy again. Now it’s home to Thompson’s experimental spirits. Small bottles with names like Devil’s Cut and Bad Batch. He breaks open a bottle of apple brandy and proffers it for tasting.
Even Curtson’s naming process isn’t ordinary. Instead of calling their spirits whiskey or bourbon, Thompson and Curtis decided to go with something else.
“I used to always ask Malinda for something brown when I wanted a whiskey, so we thought, what’s another name for brown,” Thompson says. “Malinda thought umber was cool.”
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