Hood River Distillers sits right in downtown Hood River at 304 Oak Street, operating out of what started as Oregon’s oldest continuously operating distillery back in 1934. The company was founded by the Karlsen family during Prohibition’s end, and today it’s run by Lee Medoff who took over operations and transformed the place into one of the Pacific Northwest’s most interesting spirits operations. The tasting room occupies the ground floor of their production facility, where you can sample everything from their award-winning Clear Creek brandies to Pendleton Whisky, plus a rotating selection of craft spirits they distill on-site. The story here goes way back to when August Karlsen started the operation during the Great Depression, focusing on fruit brandies made from Hood River Valley’s abundant pears and apples. Lee Medoff bought the company in the 1980s and expanded into whiskey production while keeping those original brandy traditions alive. What makes this place fascinating is how they’ve managed to stay independent while contract distilling for major brands—they’re the ones actually making Pendleton Whisky, even though most people don’t realize it. The team includes master distiller Sebastian Degens, who came from Germany and brought European distilling techniques that you can taste in their brandies. When you visit, you’re tasting spirits made literally upstairs from where you’re standing. The tasting room has this industrial-meets-cozy vibe with exposed brick and steel, but it’s the spirits that tell the real story. You can try their Clear Creek pear brandy that takes 30 pounds of pears to make one bottle, or sample some Pendleton before it gets shipped out with someone else’s label. The staff knows the production process intimately because they work alongside it daily.