Cottage Grove distillery finds winning mix of vodka, charity

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Side Pocket Corp.'s new Support Her premium vodka line provides monetary support for breast cancer research. Side Pocket bottles distilled spirits and makes drink mixes in Cottage Grove.AP

Just about anyone can start a business, said Jeff Meyers, co-owner of a distillery and bottling operation in Cottage Grove. The tough part, he said, is staying in business.

"You've got to learn how to love grilled cheese," Meyers said, only half-joking.

Since founding their company, Side Pocket Corp., in 1998 when they were just barely out of high school, Jeff, 30, and his sister, Megan, 31, have made countless personal sacrifices. Instead of spending their cash on cars, travel and entertainment when they were in their 20s, they plowed everything back into their company.

They've even put off finding mates and starting families.

"Our view is (the business) comes before everything," Meyers said.

He and his sister routinely work six days a week.

The sacrifices have started to pay off. Side Pocket has been profitable each year since 2005, Meyers said. Its sales growth has topped 100 percent in each of the past five years. It provides 12 — soon to be at least 15 jobs — with good pay and benefits.

In the past year, the company has spent millions of dollars buying its site in the Cottage Grove industrial park, expanding its plant to 88,000 square feet, and launching a new ultra-premium vodka.

That product, "Support Her," comes in a frosted bottle with a screen-printed pink ribbon, the international symbol for breast cancer awareness.

A bottle costs $34.95 in Oregon. (Prices vary in other states because of taxes.) For each bottle sold, Side Pocket donates $5 to breast cancer research and treatment. That's more than twice what the company makes on the product, Meyers said.

By launching Support Her, Side Pocket hopes to help people battling breast cancer, increase sales, and establish national distribution not just for the company's new vodka, but for its line of about 10 other brands of distilled spirits, Meyers said.

Support Her is one of the fastest-growing brands of vodka in the nation, he said. Side Pocket introduced the product in September, and it's now available in 22 states, with plans to be in 48 states by December.

"We've had incredible interest in it," he said.

National grocery chains, such as Kroger — Fred Meyer's corporate parent — have agreed to stock the product in states that allow grocers to sell distilled spirits. Oregon does not permit it.

Now the race is on to line up distribution in the full 48 states.

Side Pocket has spent $12 million on custom bottles, equipment and marketing to quickly launch Support Her, said Meyers.

Side Pocket has hired specialized brokers to make Support Her available nationwide. One, for example, who works with the buyer for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, which provides products and services to military families worldwide, opened the door for Support Her to be sold at military bases in California, Louisiana and in the Washington, D.C., area, Meyers said.

Earlier this year, the buyer for Air Force One and the White House called Side Pocket to request Support Her.

Once Side Pocket has established national distribution for Support Her, it can use those same sales channels to promote its other brands, Meyers said. Side Pocket makes about 10 product lines, each with about five distilled spirits, such as vodka, tequila, gin and rum.

The company's early products, such as Lubrication vodka and its Octane line of 100-proof spirits, were geared to people in their 20s and 30s. Others, such as its Vixen brand and Chick Food Premium Schnapps, were marketed to women.

In recent years, the company has been creating products for customers in older demographics (age 40 to 60), such as Meyers brand premium blended Canadian Whisky.

Oregon, a leader in microbreweries and wineries, now is home to nine craft distillers, according to the American Distilling Institute. There are 144 nationwide.

When they first started their business, the Meyers siblings had no idea that they'd eventually own and operate a distillery. Jeff's original idea, which he outlined for a high school project, was to create a gourmet food company centered on salsa.

He and Megan renovated a garage behind their parents' Cottage Grove home, and obtained FDA approval to make and package foods. But when the siblings finished the renovations, they realized that the salsa market was flooded.

"Everyone who had a stove and a kitchen sink was making salsa," Meyers said.

They came up with another idea. They thought their mom's Bloody Mary mix was a winner, so they decided to try to sell that. They introduced a line of drink mixes and later made contact with a broker for Baja Bob's, who asked Side Pocket to bottle the product. Side Pocket bought an automated filling line and Baja Bob's orders kept them so busy, "We didn't have time to do anything else," Meyers said.

Before long, Baja Bob's asked Side Pocket to import tequila to package with the cocktail mix. Meyers obtained a certificate from the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Later, when he made arrangements to start importing tequila, a federal regulator called and said Side Pocket needed to obtain a special federal permit.

Just as Side Pocket got its federal permit, "the low-carb craze crashed," Meyers said, and the plans to sell tequila with Baja Bob's drink mix fizzled.

Jeff and Megan spent about a week batting around ideas of how else they could use their hard-won distilled spirits permit. That's when they came up with plans for Octane, their own line of 100-proof products and Lubrication vodka.

Meyers said his goal over the next five years is for Side Pocket to become one of the nation's largest distillers.

"You've got to find a creative way to keep yourself in business during difficult economic times," Meyers said.

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