Post navigation

Prev: (01/04/23) | Next: (01/04/23)

With a Tequila Lab and room to grow Pike/Pine’s food truck scene, the guys behind Sparkle Donkey making new home on E Madison

(Image: The Tequila Lab)

Capitol Hill’s craft distillery and brewery scene has struggled to grow but a Seattle spirit maker has returned to the neighborhood where its business plan was first shaped and is bringing its Sparkle Donkey and Outdoor Whiskey brands along with a new Tequila Lab event space with it.

Black Rock Spirits has uprooted from SoDo and moved its offices and Tequila Lab to the old 5 Point Cleaners building along E Madison on the backside of Pike/Pine with plans for a new headquarters with an events space available to promote its brands or host celebrations and community events, and a food truck court that could become a part of the Pike/Pine weekend nosh scene.

Sven Liden tells CHS there aren’t any plans for Black Rock to make its booze on the Hill, however.

“Paying for industrial equipment is tough in high rent area,” Liden said. “We’re a liquor company. We distill out of state.”

Liden and Stefan Schachtell started Black Rock Spirits about 15 years ago working frequently among the laptop crew at Capitol Hill’s Oddfellows as the company made its name on the back of the novelty of its first big hit — bacon flavored vodka.

UPDATE: Due to a misunderstanding, CHS originally reported Black Rock started with an office space in the Odd Fellows building. Turns out, they were like the rest of us on their laptops at tables in the cafe.

Today, its leading brand is Sparkle Donkey tequila but the company continues to innovate with trendy flavors and packaging including Outdoor Whiskey with its old timey bottles and labels.

“We are super small, we don’t have George Clooney,” Liden says of an industry that includes more than its fair share of vanity projects from movie and rock stars.

Now, Black Rock is back on Capitol HIll. Its new offices are in the long ago service station turned dry cleaners that was once the home of the Studio Paradiso art center. The building began 2022 as a COVID testing center but it and a “health and testosterone” clinic that set up shop there were short lived.

The Tequila Lab (Image: Black Rock Spirits)

The property might seem perfect for eventually adding a small micro distillery but its years of automobile service and dry cleaning mean a lengthy soil remediation process are required before any significant development. In the meantime, Capitol Hill’s craft brewing and distillery scene continues to shrink as its light manufacturing-zoned buildings give way to redevelopment. Redhook’s massive investment six years ago to create its E Pike Brewlab might have been the last of its kind.

Making a home for Black Rock Spirits, however, might have other side benefits for the neighborhood. Liden says its Tequila Lab event space has already been used for community events and is available for rent. It’s a unique venue with room for anywhere from 20 to 50 people making it useful for smaller gatherings that don’t require large halls.

But its symbiotic relationships with food trucks might be the biggest win. The old service station has room for truck parking that lets mobile food providers come in and be part of the lab. Liden says the plan is to continue making a space for the trucks on weekends to be part of the Pike/Pine nightlife scene and, hopefully, bring in E Pike revelers and Seattle U kids for a bite to eat and maybe some Sparkle Donkey branding.

The path to growing its part in the scene has been slowed a bit by the major ongoing construction of the E Madison RapidRide bus route. But Black Rock is making itself at home. You will see food trucks out front and, eventually, a new mural going up in the midst of the Madison construction zone.

“The Lab is not a primary revenue driver for us,” Liden said, “but it’s nice to be back in that neighborhood.”

Black Rock Spirits is located at 1000 E Madison. You can learn more about the Tequila Lab at thetequilalab.com.

 

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month. 

 
Subscribe and support CHS Contributors -- $1/$5/$10 per month

2 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
milkbrother
milkbrother
2 years ago

Sometime in the summer, they must’ve been liquidating all of their bacon flavored vodka stuff, because they put out about 1000 mason jars with the logo on it for free. They left them right outside the madison building.

They gave them all away for free. I got a couple cases of them and still use them (though they break pretty easily cause they were pretty low quality).

d.c.
d.c.
2 years ago

Met Stefan years ago, glad this business is still going! Hopefully the new space works out for them.