Gary Kelleher picks up a hint of chocolate in the finish of a sip of Dripping Springs Vodka. There are notes of vanilla there, too—on that many tasters agree. Not everyone gets the chocolate. But Kelleher knew what he wanted this vodka to taste like even before he set out to create it.

“Our great-great-grandfather made vodka for the czar of Russia,” says Kelleher, one of three brothers born and raised in Dallas. “My grandfather came here from Russia. His great-grandfather was actually hired by Catherine the Great of Russia to make vodka. I grew up thinking that was the coolest thing.”

While Kelleher dreamed of making vodka himself, his own life took a different turn. He came to Austin to attend the University of Texas in the 1970s, married and opened a catering and carry-out business with his wife. Children came later, motivating a return to Dallas to be closer to family. Kelleher worked with Boston Market as a franchiser and developer when that company came to Texas, and stayed on in a corporate capacity after McDonald’s acquired it. He led a “really cushy” life in the corporate world, he says, but his interest in vodka persisted. He drank it and studied it, reading books and magazines in his spare time to better understand his favorite beverage. Eventually, he says, “I decided I wasn’t getting any younger. If I was ever going to do this, I should just do it.”

Brotherly Love
Kelleher called his brothers. Tim and Kevin had worked together before, most recently running a machine-manufacturing company. Tim had ties to the beverage industry, too, having built a business importing Australian wines to the United K.

“Kevin thought I was insane at first,” says Kelleher. “And then he investigated the business concept and decided that it made some sense.” In 2005, the Kelleher brothers began their new venture together.
In all his years of informal study, Kelleher had learned a bit about vodka—both in terms of what he liked to drink and how to make it. “I had an idea in mind of what I wanted the flavor profile of the vodka to be,” he says, his tone shifting from business-savvy to beverage-impassioned. To achieve that flavor profile, he would have to find the right ingredients and process them a particular way.

Vodka itself is loosely defined. The word derives from voda, a Russian word for water, and water is the only ingredient common to all vodkas. Vodka is made by fermenting some source of carbohydrate—grain, potatoes or barley, for instance—then distilling the resulting alcohol to eliminate unwanted components. Unlike Champagne or Scotch, which can only bear those names if they are made in certain places, vodka can be made anywhere. So why not Texas?

Kelleher was not the first to think of making vodka in Texas. Tito Beveridge started making his Tito’s Handmade Vodka in Austin in the 1990s, and Kelleher credits him with opening the door to Texas vodka. Since Kelleher got into the field, Chad Auler has also joined with his Savvy Vodka, which he also makes in Austin.

The Right Stuff
Kelleher chose his ingredients carefully, since vodka’s ingredients are so few and so essential to attaining the “flavor profile” he sought. Remembering family forays into the Hill Country from his youth, Kelleher tasted waters from different artesian springs that burble up from the Edward’s Aquifer. “I thought if you found the right artesian spring water, you could make a really good vodka,” he says.

The water he settled on comes from a spring located a few miles east of the distillery in Dripping Springs. It’s high in minerals, including calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium, which give “a full palate of flavor,” he says. To contribute a touch of sweetness to the vodka’s ultimate flavor, he chose sweet corn as his starting point. “It gives you a full, round flavor and a softness coming in,” he says.

Beyond ingredients, though, the methods and materials used in vodka production can dramatically influence the final product’s flavor. Kelleher knew he wanted a copper still. Stainless steel is often favored for being easy to maintain, and it doesn’t affect a vodka’s flavor. Copper, on the other hand, is a soft metal that requires greater maintenance and repair, but reacts with alcohol to contribute its own flavor enhancement.

The vodka Kelleher created met with swift commercial success, as well as critical acclaim. “We have been incredibly lucky,” Kelleher says. “People have just embraced it immediately.” That includes consumers in Texas and the five other states where Dripping Springs Vodka is for sale. The judges of the 2008 International Wine & Spirits Competition awarded it a gold medal and dubbed it “Best in Class,” describing it as “a great sipping vodka” with “tremendous intensity” and “fascinating notes.”

Ten days before that awards ceremony took place in London in November, a devastating welding accident destroyed the Kellehers’ distillery. That dealt a setback to the company at the busiest time of year for any adult-beverage producer, but didn’t change the brothers’ plans for growth.

With sales numbers climbing a steep curve, the future begs expansion for Dripping Springs Vodka. But Kelleher says he won’t sacrifice quality for quantity. To increase his production, he’ll order up additional custom-built, 50-gallon stills so that the process that has worked so far will remain consistent.

The czars who patronized his great-great-grandfather surely wouldn’t have settled for less than the finest possible product, and Kelleher makes it clear that he won’t, either. Kelleher’s success so far suggests that a couple of generations haven’t filtered out the gift for making vodka from his genes.