Our partners at Distilled Resources, Inc., are incredibly talented human beings. Father/Son owners Phillip and Gray Ottley truly represent what it means to be a partner in the process.  As a family-owned business, they know that relationships are what create successful partnerships. We found a natural philosophical fit between us as well. Distilled Resources Inc. is part of a local renewable energy program and receives no less than 25% of their monthly electrical consumption from wind generated power.

Master Distiller Bill Scott eagerly took on our challenge of making the first organic American rye vodka because, well, he wanted to show the world what he could do. And guess what? Bill nailed it.  With careful attention to detail and a true "Eureka!" moment, Bill developed the proprietary fermentation technique responsible for Square One's unusually soft, delicate taste. We owe them many thanks for supporting our vision of creating singular grain certified organic vodka made from organic American rye.

Without the team at Distilled Resources, our dream of creating one of the best-tasting vodkas in the world—while remaining true to our organic origins—would never have happened.

With the help of our friends at Distilled Resources, we are able to source the country’s highest quality organic rye.  Rye likes cold, dry weather best, and thus North Dakota is the origin of our organic rye. When we asked our grain trading partner about the quality of our rye, he said,  “North Dakota is the Napa Valley of rye”.  Wine Country is in our back yard, so we like to think we know a bit about quality wines.  When he referred to North Dakota as the Napa Valley of rye, that was the golden seal of approval for us!

Not too many vodka brands will brag about their packaging.  After all, it’s what is inside that counts, right?  At Square One, we took it one step further.  We wanted to make “green” decisions not only as it related to our vodka itself, but also in the packaging. Here are some examples:

- We use chlorine-free shipper cartons (that’s why they are brown, not white) using as much recycled content as possible while still protecting our bottles during shipping, and using only soy-based inks. 

- We use soy-based inks wherever possible (metallic ink doesn't come in soy yet) on all of our labels and marketing materials. 

- After much research, we recently made the move from a virgin tree paper stock for our main face label, to one made from bamboo, bagasse (sugar cane pulp) and cotton; and a foot label paper that now has recycled content in it.

- We use New Leaf paper and Greenerprinter.com (both certified green businesses) for printing all our marketing materials and business papers. 

We continue to push our vendors to present us with the greenest options possible as we strive to make all of our packaging completely earth-friendly.