By Morgan M. Hurley | Editor

Young distillery operator in East Village makes Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30’

In the last decade, San Diego has become increasingly known for its male-dominated craft beer culture, currently residing at No. 2 on Thrillist’s Best Beer Cities in America.

Several local brewers have since expanded their ventures into the craft distillery world — offering their take on various spirit varietals — and at least one has migrated to spirits altogether.

There are a number of stand-alone craft distilleries throughout San Diego County as well, but none is more intriguing than You & Yours Distilling Co., a boutique urban distillery that popped up in East Village at the corner of G and 15th streets in March.

With a welcoming and expansive tasting room and clever, well-thought-out cocktail menu, the proof is in its three years of planning. Current offerings in its “flagship” line of spirits are Y & Y Vodka and Sunday Gin, with a seasonal Winter Sunday Gin to be unveiled in a soft release on Dec. 6.

The founder and co-owner of You & Yours is 25-year-old Laura Johnson, a Texas native who after less than a year of operation has already landed herself a spot on Forbes’ coveted “30 Under 30” list for 2018, which was announced Nov. 14.

Johnson arrived in America’s Finest City seven years ago by way of University of San Diego (USD), but becoming a San Diego resident was not her original intention.

She had applied to the University of Southern California, which she was “dead-set on” attending, with USD as a back-up. While she liked the campus, USD’s small Catholic-based environment was “exactly the opposite” of what she had envisioned for herself, but when she didn’t get accepted to USC, she decided to enroll at USD and reapply; hoping to transfer to Los Angeles for her sophomore year. When that moment rolled around a year later, however, things had changed.

“No. I’m exactly where I need to be,” Johnson said she told herself. “I love USD. I love San Diego. Everything happens for a reason.”

How she got here

Johnson’s journey into distilling is an interesting one and to say that she has a flair for what she is doing here in East Village is an understatement.

Always drawn to the allure of cocktails and spirits rather than beer and wine as a precocious teenager, Johnson said looking back, it was a post-high school graduation trip to Cuba with her father and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Havana Club distillery that became the “catalyst” for the path she is on today.

During her college years, she began to take in distilleries on every road trip and getaway she could, but wasn’t thinking about its place in her future.

“It was something I knew that I loved, but I didn’t really know what it meant,” Johnson said. “I didn’t see it as a passion yet.”

After she graduated with a degree in international business and economics from USD in 2014, she traveled to Washington state for a one-week course on distilling, and it suddenly all became clear. For the next nine months, she said went through a “rabbit hole” of distillery education; a self-described “dog on a bone,” chewing up as much knowledge as she could. She took courses, workshops, master classes, distillery tours and apprenticeships, immersing herself into what she now knew had become her passion.

“I had found something that really got me up in the morning,” she said. “I fell in love with distilling. The creativity side of it was just so intoxicating.”

She returned to San Diego, knowing she wanted to get into the industry and eventually have her own concept, but had no idea what the timeline would be.

“What I really wanted was more time on a still, actual production experience,” Johnson explained. “I felt like I had great theory and a great grasp of where the industry was, all the different kinds of components — like what it takes to open your own spot, packaging, going to market and distribution — I felt like I had really done my homework, but what I didn’t have was production experience.”

Determined, she reached out to every distillery she could find online located up and down the coast. The response was dim, until one came from a member of the newly formed San Diego Distilleries Guild.

Johnson showed up at the guild’s very first meeting and introduced herself; then she just kept coming back until her persistence started to pay off and she began to hone relationships. Unfortunately, the odds were against her. No one was taking this educated, motivated, steadfast and able young woman who wanted distillery production experience seriously.

“‘Oh, you’re cute,’” Johnson said they told her, symbolically patting her on the head. “‘We have a position in the tasting room or the marketing department.’ It just wasn’t happening.”

While many young women would have just accepted one of those positions, sheepishly acknowledging the industry’s patriarchal view of her role and seeing it as a step in the door with a possible promotion later on, Johnson wasn’t having it. She decided to do it herself.

With a business plan already started, a little fundraising experience and myriad connections, she cut out the middle-man and did her own crowdsourcing. She pitched family, friends and the dozens of industry contacts she’d made over the past year and within a month, had the funding she needed.

“It felt so good when the money came in,” she said. “Every time I felt that support, it reiterated to me that ‘yes, you can do this. Keep going.’”

Johnson said it took approximately three years from the time she finished her business plan to the day she opened the doors of You & Yours — and 14 months of that was spent haggling over the lease.

“East Village seemed like a great area; I kind of wanted a little bit of that gritty up-and-coming funk vibe … an industrial diamond-in-the-rough-hidden-gem kind of thing,” she said.

The products

“At the same time that I was falling in love with distilling, I was falling in love with gin,” Johnson said. “I knew I wanted gins to be our focus. That’s what gets my creative juices flowing the most.”

Vodka was an obvious byproduct because, according to Johnson, “to make gin, you have to make vodka, as gin is essentially just a flavored vodka.”

After trying a number of fermentable sugars — corn, potato and grape was her first blend — she realized the grapes alone offered everything she was looking for. Her spirits are 100 percent Northern California grape-based. She said American vodkas are traditionally corn-based, while French are wheat-based and others are potato-based. Ciroc is another popular vodka on the market that is grape-based.

Johnson’s Sunday Gin is her “pride and joy.”

“The best way to keep this whole venture authentic was to create something I wanted to drink,” she said. “I was looking for something bright and fresh and modern and juicy and citrus-forward, and that’s exactly what [Sunday Gin] is.”

Johnson said the staff “affectionately refers to their Sunday Gin as a “gateway gin,” since many who first come in either don’t care to try gin or have tried it and have had what she calls a “gincident.”

“I welcome you to come in and we will facilitate your ‘gintervention,’” she said, laughing. “It is a great entry point if you don’t like gin. If you do like gin you should not mix it with anything, just enjoy it.”

Their cocktail program — executed by a five-person staff led by tasting room manager Tom Burnett — is unique in that each cocktail is created with ingredients that highlight the flavor notes of their craft spirits, not mask them or shift the focus to the other ingredients.

“Our spirits are what we want to showcase and what we want you to taste,” she said.

After spending some time at You & Yours, it is hard to believe Johnson is just 25. Though she is at times chatty and playful, she is also fiercely confident and affirming, with an absolute wealth of knowledge about the industry. It wasn’t surprising to learn that making Forbes’ list was a personal goal.

Johnson has also had a hand in every aspect of her business, from raising the capital; choosing the location; designing her own custom still; curating the spirits; conceptualizing the cocktail menu; and designing and outfitting the tasting room. As such, Johnson has truly made You & Yours California’s first destination distillery, just as its website claims.

For the curious, she said they do indeed plan to venture into other spirits down the road, but for now, she’s quite content with their offerings.

“I don’t want people to think we are making gin because we are waiting on the whiskey to age,” Johnson said. “We are making gin because this is what we want to make. I never want anyone to think these spirits are an afterthought. This is who we are.”

You & Yours Distillery Co. is located at 1495 G St. in East Village. Their operating hours ate Wednesdays through Fridays, 4–10 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays, noon-10 p.m. They offer workshops, distillery tours, pairing events and their expansive tasting room is available for holiday parties, office meetings or even private parties. On New Year’s Eve, they can only pour until 10 p.m., but she said it’s a great place to start your evening. To learn more, visit youandyours.com.

— Morgan M. Hurley can be reached at [email protected].