Alley 6 Craft Distillery
Jason Jorgensen
Alley 6 Craft Distillery
There are six alleys in the downtown Healdsburg, and Jason Jorgensen and his wife Krystle live off Alley No. 6. This, along with a subtle nod to alleys being where distillers usually made spirits during Prohibition, explains why the duo named their upstart craft distillery Alley 6.
Jason and Krystle moved to Healdsburg in 2012, fresh off an eight-year stint in Phoenix and Tucson, in Arizona. Jason, an amateur winemaker and brewer, came across a five-gallon still at a flea market and taught himself how to distill spirits. That’s when it hit him: Why not open a craft distillery in the new town? By 2013 he and Krystle had purchased one of two 250-gallon copper alembic pot stills from Portugal and founded their distillery. The company started selling products in 2015.
Today Alley 6 makes a variety of different spirits, including three different whiskeys, a gin, a variety of brandies with fresh fruit, and a nocino, which is a black walnut liqueur. The fruit in the brandies comes from nearby orchards. The gin includes botanicals foraged from the wilderness of West County. Most of the whiskeys feature special malted grains that are intended to go into beer. And the walnuts are gleaned from trees within miles of downtown.
“The stuff we use is as local as it gets,” Jason quips. “That’s one of the reasons we love being in Healdsburg—there often great materials and people always are willing to collaborate.”
All told, Alley 6 currently makes about 10,000 cases each year.
The best way to experience Alley 6 is to visit the distillery tucked away in an industrial building northwest of Plank coffee shop on the top end of town. From the outside, the facility looks like any other warehouse. Inside, however, the tasting is modern and chic—the brainchild of Krystle, who works at Saint Dizier Home downtown and is an interior designer by trade.
The best strategy: Sidle up to the long tasting bar, grab a stool, and let Jason pour splashes of his latest concoctions. There’s no need for speakeasies with this in town.