Our Story

 “You don’t go back to Square One, you start there.
When you start at Square One, you do things the right way and thats what we’re all about!”

- Allison Evanow  |  Founder and CEO

Our Story

Square One Organic Spirits, founded by spirits and cocktail lover Allison Evanow, is a female-owned boutique organic spirits company founded with the sole mission of creating innovative organic spirits and cocktails with an eco-conscious mindset.  Back in 2004, as a spirits industry veteran, Allison knew that many spirits used artificial ingredients and additives in their products and she wondered why none of them were bringing the farm-to-bottle philosophy to the bar just like the chefs were in their restaurants.  So she set out to research why, and was surprised to find that there were almost no certified organic spirits on the market at the time, and to her knowledge, none that dedicated the whole company to making exclusively organic spirits.

Upon further reflection and in thinking about what types of spirits she enjoyed, and those that she actually didn’t enjoy, she realized that the flavored vodka category was full of brands that used mostly artificial flavors, colors, added sugar and chemical additives.  Certainly none of them were using real organic botanical ingredients! An idea was born!  

For Allison, the opportunity to pioneer a vodka with real organic ingredients had bloomed right before her eyes.  So, in a very bold move she started at Square One . . .

Our Ingredients

We, here at Square One, pioneered the concept of organic spirits 15 years ago and our distinctive and USDA certified organic spirits, mixers and cocktails portfolio use only superior grains and plant botanicals to craft our award-winning portfolio.

Our spirits portfolio is made with 100 percent organic American-grown rye using only organic yeasts and natural nutrients in a process certified both by Oregon Tilth, the U.S.'s most stringent and prestigious U.S. Organic Certification Agency, and by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP). The only other ingredient is pure, fresh water from the pristine watershed of the nearby Teton Mountains.  The result?  A truly unique organic vodka that is clean, yet delivers a rich, sophisticated taste experience.

Square One continues to drive innovation with the introduction in 2019 of handcrafted certified organic cocktail mixers.  Our mixers contain nothing artificial, are low in sugar and high in juice content so they taste fresh and bright.  They mix incredibly well with our spirits and won’t disappoint.

Why Organic?

Square One truly stands alone in the category of flavored (or in this case, ‘infused’) vodkas. The flavor infusions utilize real fruits and herbs, nothing artificial, and require several runs of careful distillation in order to blend for the proper flavor and texture profiles. There is a ton of passion behind this brand, and our products are truly one of a kind!

Rye

Rye is a challenging grain for bread makers as well as vodka producers because of its dense fiber structure. Nevertheless, vodka lovers favor it for its nutty, complex flavor profile as compared to corn, wheat and other grains. Rye likes cold, dry weather best, and the northern plains of the United States is the origin of our rye.  Currently we are sourcing all of our organic rye from farmers in Montana. 

Botanicals

Square One truly stands alone in the category of flavor infused vodkas. The flavor infusions utilize real organic botanicals – fruits, flowers, spices, vegetables and herbs.  You can literally taste the difference organic makes. We can’t always source organic botanicals year-round, but rest assured that every one of our botanicals is the real deal, not some conjured up potion of chemicals to mimic flavor!

Our Eco-Philosophy

Square One's business philosophy includes seeking out eco-friendly choices in all parts of the business, including using soy inks, FSC certified and carbon neutral face labels, wind-power at the distillery and designing a bottle that is stylish enough to be reused.

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 on all of our labels and marketing materials.

• After much research, we migrated away from paper stock for our main face label, to one made from tree-free materials and a foot label paper that now has recycled content in it.

• We use post-consumer waste paper stock for printing our sell sheets and marketing materials.

Not all of our materials are as environmentally friendly as we would like, but we constantly push our vendors to present us with the greenest options possible as we strive to make all of our packaging and marketing materials completely earth-friendly.

Want a cool idea that is eco-friendly?

Soak your used Square One bottle in cold water for about 10 minutes, then peel the labels off and discard.  You now have a great bottle to use as a vase, a water bottle, a candle-holder or for infusing your own vodkas or nectars for your next cocktail party!  Now that’s green!