Pub Snippets..

Around the Bend

By Mitchell Hartman

Oregon Business - January, 2004

There must be something in the water. How else to explain the breakout business ideas coming out of Central Oregon.

First, there's Bendistillery's 80-proof wild ride - aka Mazama Infused Pepper Vodka. The 7-year-old small-batch specialty distillery is getting itself on the gourmet map - the company's Crater Lake Vodka and Cascade Mountain Gin have taken home silver and bronze medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in recent years.

Bendistillery's tour de fource is infused hard liquor, including something called Hazelnut Espresso Vodka. But, so far, it hasn't had anything that would blow your head off in a Bloddy Mary. Enter Mazama Infused Pepper Vodka, made from six different varieties of sweet and hot peppers. It's the only pepper-infused vodka produced in the U.S. How spicy is it? You can get a hint from the name. Mount Mazama was the name of the towering volcano that blew itself to smitherens 7,700 years ago to form Crater Lake.