Jason Parker
Jason Parker was born in the mid-1960s in small-town Bowling Green, Kentucky, where he was raised. His earliest employment came at age eleven, when he delivered newspapers and repeatedly asked the owner of Nat’s Outdoor Sports for a job. A few years later, the store hired him to assemble children’s tricycles for Christmas, beginning a six-year association that gave him his first experience inside a small business. Parker also became a homebrewer at the age of 16. When his parents found out, his punishment was that they would join him in his ale-making. Parker eventually traveled to England to study traditional ale brewing academically.
In 1989, Parker moved to Washington and entered professional brewing. He was the first brewer hired by Charles and Rose Ann Finkel at Seattle’s Pike Place Brewery, now Pike Brewing Company. Charles Finkel became an influential figure in Parker’s working life, demonstrating that a growing business could cooperate with others instead of accepting established practices as fixed limits. Parker strengthened his practical brewing education by studying chemistry and microbiology at Evergreen State College, earning degrees in both subjects. He subsequently helped open Fish Tale Ales in Olympia and worked for both Redhook Brewery and Pyramid Brewing Company, accumulating experience with malt, fermentation, yeast management, recipe development, and commercial beverage production.
Parker left brewing around 2000, when consolidation had made the craft-beer industry less attractive to him, and entered information technology. His work during the following decade included time with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He nevertheless continued following developments in American craft distilling, especially after Washington changed its laws in 2008 to permit craft distilleries, tasting rooms, and self-distribution.
Parker and Micah Nutt had brewed beer together at home for years, and Parker valued Nutt’s technical ability and consistency. They formed Copperworks around a simple but exacting idea: make exceptionally good beer and transform it into whiskey. The company was incorporated in 2011 and Parker organized its Seattle operation during the following year. Copperworks Distilling Company opened to the public in 2013 on Seattle’s downtown waterfront within walking distance of Pike Place Market, hotels, restaurants, tourist destinations, and the city’s cruise terminals. Copperworks was designed around malted barley rather than the corn-centered mash bill associated with bourbon. Its principal aged spirit quickly became American Single Malt Whiskey, accompanied by gin and vodka which was also distilled from barley. Parker and Nutt ordered traditional copper pot stills from Forsyths of Scotland and developed a production system rooted in craft brewing. Local partner breweries made unhopped beer from malted barley, after which Copperworks transported it to the waterfront distillery for double distillation. The absence of hops avoided bitterness, while the brewing process allowed the partners to concentrate on malt character, yeast performance, fermentation, and conditioning before the liquid reached the still. That conditioning stage distinguished Parker’s approach from much conventional whiskey production. Copperworks extended the period from cooking the grain to distillation to approximately three weeks, rather than distilling after only a few days of fermentation. The additional time allowed yeast to settle and reabsorb compounds generated during fermentation, helping the beer’s flavors coalesce before distillation. Parker’s method treated the fermented liquid as a flavor-bearing beer rather than merely an efficient source of alcohol.
The first Copperworks whiskey brews were made in September and October 2013. Distillation followed late that year, and the new spirit entered American white-oak barrels in January 2014. Most were full-sized 53-gallon barrels produced by Kentucky’s Kelvin Cooperage, made from two-year-seasoned oak, given a long toast and a No. 3 char. Six full-sized barrels were combined in May 2016 after approximately 27 months of maturation to create Copperworks American Single Malt Whiskey Release 001, issued during the summer of 2016. By publishing detailed production specifications for its releases, Copperworks allowed drinkers to see the barley, brewing dates, distillation records, barrel sizes, cooperage, maturation conditions, and bottling information behind the whiskey.
Recognition followed the maturation of Copperworks’ early barrels. The American Distilling Institute named Copperworks its 2018 Distillery of the Year, and its spirits later received double-gold medals and scores ranging from 94 to 96 points in major competitions. Parker also led Copperworks into the group that founded the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission. He advocated for a national definition broad enough to permit mashing and fermentation at a partner brewery, provided that distillation occurred at the named distillery. That provision was especially important to Copperworks and to other American producers using the equipment and technical knowledge of the country’s extensive craft-brewing industry. The federal standard for American Single Malt Whiskey took effect in January 2025, requiring 100-percent malted barley, distillation at one distillery in the United States, American mashing and maturation, oak casks no larger than 700 liters, distillation at no more than 160 proof, and bottling at no less than 80 proof.
Copperworks’ later growth brought Parker’s distilling career back to its brewing origins. After Pike Brewing moved production out of its historic Post Alley brewhouse in October 2023, Copperworks acquired that brewing facility in 2024. The purchase gave Parker access to the brewhouse where he had begun his professional career in 1989 and advanced Copperworks’ longstanding objective of controlling more of its own brewing.
Parker’s defining contribution to whiskey is barley-forward and shaped by Washington agriculture and the disciplines of craft brewing. From Pike’s first brewhouse to Copperworks’ oldest barrels, his career has established a continuous connection between well-made beer, carefully managed fermentation, copper-pot distillation, and American single-malt whiskey.
Sources:
Copperworks Distilling Company official website, copperworksdistilling.com
Fabulous Washington, “Fabulous People: Jason Parker,” Fabulous Washington, October 18, 2022, fabulouswashington.com
Port of Seattle, “Waterfront Distillery Forms Lasting Relationships,” Omie Drawhorn, June 17, 2024, portseattle.org
Whisky Magazine, “‘Making Perfect Beer and Turning It into Whiskey’: Inside Seattle’s Copperworks Distilling,” Maggie Kimberl, July 31, 2026, whiskymag.com
Craft Spirits Magazine, “Copperworks Acquiring Former Pike Brewing Brewhouse,” Staff, June 20, 2024, craftspiritsmag.com
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee
