Dr. Craig Stoner, a dentist for more than three decades, no longer fills teeth for a living. Now he’s filling bottles.
That’s the mantra he lives by now, after creating and successfully producing his own brand of vodka and whiskey called “Dr. Stoner’s Herb Flavored Spirits.” Yes, that type of herb.
Stoner, of Winchester, Virginia, and his business partner David Baxter created a specially formulated infusion, consisting of dozens of botanicals and herb extracts, that provides their spirits with “the distinct aroma and flavor of cannabis without being cannabis,” according to Stoner. All of the ingredients are legal and contain no illicit substances.
The drink is produced in Virginia Beach and sold across several states. Not all localities sell the vodka and whiskey, but stores in both Williamsburg and Yorktown do, according to the Dr. Stoner website.
“The labeling and formulation of spirits must be approved by the federal government,” said Stoner when asked about the regulatory process he’d been through. “So all of the ingredients needed to be legal at the federal level,” he said, meaning he could not use cannabis-derived ingredients, which may be legal in certain states, but not all. “Everything is legit and has been approved by all appropriate government agencies.”
Stoner was inspired by the backyard moonshine offerings he found while attending NASCAR events after he retired in 2008. With an extensive background in science and chemistry, Stoner felt he could do a decent job refining those illicit mash concoctions into something worth buying.
He would eventually meet Baxter by sheer luck while both were on an airplane in 2014. Stoner says he does not care for small talk with strangers, but his wife began chatting up Baxter during their flight back from a wedding in Scottsdale, Arizona. It just so happens that Baxter was returning from a distilling conference in Seattle. They soon teamed up to help bring Stoner’s vision to life.
Stoner attended Moonshine University in Louisville, Kentucky to study distilling and the marketing of craft spirits. Both he and Baxter were intimately involved in the process of trial and error needed to simulate the flavor and aroma of cannabis that Stoner’s brand demanded.
Some unusual — but legal — ingredients found in the herbal infusions produced for Stoner’s liquors include lavender, lemongrass, and coffee leaf extract.
“The bitterness of the coffee leaf helps offset the strength of the other flavors,” he says. Stoner estimates that he and Baxter created 300 to 400 recipes before they got the ingredients just right.
According to Stoner, his herb flavored spirits began selling in ABC stores in late February of this year, and have already grossed over $300,000 in sales. A distillery in Kentucky produces spirits for that state as well as West Virginia, while the liquors available in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Washington D.C. are produced by Chesapeake Bay Distillery in Virginia Beach.
Stoner chose to produce his vodka and whiskey at Chesapeake Bay Distillery because of Chris Richeson, who is a managing member of the distillery.
Stoner was “impressed by Chris’s distilling knowledge and strong background in science,” and decided to place the production of his liquors for the mid-Atlantic region in Richeson’s hands.
Richeson attended Virginia Tech where he studied industrial automation and process control. He says he was skeptical that Stoner’s formula would be approved by Virginia ABC because of its unusual branding.
However, “the wisdom of our state government prevailed,” Richeson said, and after it was approved he began to distill and bottle Stoner’s product. The spirits are typically bottled in 1,200- to 3,000-bottle batches at his distillery, which typically employs about 10 people, according to Richeson.
Stoner is not finished producing new elixirs. He is currently working to create an appropriate combination of herbs and botanical extracts that will complement the flavor profiles of tequila and rum, he said. Expect both to have “similar herbal flavors” to the vodka and whiskey, although importing tequila from Mexico complicates the timeline for the production.
When asked about his brand and its in-your-face reference to marijuana, Stoner replied, “Listen, I was born a Stoner, I will always be a Stoner.”
