Day one of the Great American Distillers Festival, here at Portland Center Stage, and I seem to have come across a bit of controversy. It seems some of the out of town distillers are a bit dismayed that Portland's craft distilleries seem to be relying on the same base spirit instead of distilling creating their own.

Ben Gersh from Old New Orleans Rum in New Orleans had some particularly biting criticism. "How can you call yourself a craft distillery when your working from the same base spirit?" he mused, "You just don't have enough control over your product."

That might be true for many Portland area distilleries, but the newest, Artisan Spirits, is making their vodka from scratch, base spirit and all. I'll be asking more local distillers about the base spirit debate as the festival continues. We'll see how it works out.

Right now, I'm just surprised that I even have the capacity to post this blog, having tasted roughly half of the offerings from the 24 distillers who are on site. But, I'm fading fast. And my photographer is hungry. So, it's time to bail for now. I'll be back later with more coverage.

Just so you know, the festival will be running until 9 pm tonight and starts again tomorrow at 1pm. Sunday will feature several seminars and the finals of the mixologist contest. If you like booze (and I know you do) this is definitely the place to be.

Admission is $10/day and includes three tasting tickets. Hope to see you here...