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At Bonnie and Israel Morales’ nationally recognized Eastern European restaurant Kachka, diners have been downing shots of horseradish vodka with pelmeni and their signature Herring Under a Fur Coat since 2014. Now, the restaurant has its very own distillery and zakuski bar spin-off: Kackha Fabrika, which translates to “factory,” also encompasses a dumpling workshop where the restaurant’s popular pelmeni and vareniki is handmade.
Fabrika opened in July in the Bindery Annex building with seasonal cocktails and a seafood-forward menu. Kachka beverage director and head distiller Jamie Bones created a list of six original martinis for the bar, from a non-alcoholic martini to a nod to Scandinavian culture with dill aquavit and their version of an espresso martini (birch vodka, Kahlua, instant coffee, coffee condensed milk, with a chicory molasses swirl). As one would expect from a vodka-centric bar, the martinis are all ICE. COLD.
Opening a public-facing distillery was a happy accident for the Moraleses—the project wasn’t something they’d had in mind until the owners of now-closed Aimsir Distilling approached them about a lease takeover. Because of how the opportunity presented itself, Bonnie Morales planned out the restaurant based on the space’s existing interior. The distillery can be viewed through large windows, and the seafood station is set up at the bend of the horseshoe-shaped bar so guests will be able to see their seafood being prepared.
Vodka is at the center of everything at Fabrika. Kachka’s newly launched vodka and a selection from local distilleries make up a curated list of three dozen or so vodkas. They’re all available served frozen, and in 30, 60, or 100 gram increments, making it easy to try different ones. If you’re not sure where to start, the restaurant’s front-of-house staff is happy to point you in the right direction—they receive a manual with extensive tasting notes on the vodkas in order to speak expertly about the liquor to customers.
“A big piece of it is being able to highlight what we’re doing and just vodka in general,” Bonnie Morales says. “It doesn’t get enough respect… it is just as noble of a distillate as whiskey and scotch.”
The launch of Kachka’s first pure vodka coincided with the opening of Fabrika. The Moraleses previously worked with the local distillery Martin Ryan Distilling Co. to produce their vodka, but now they have more control over their product. Vodka aficionados can try it in the restaurant’s house martini—From Kachka With Love—which used to be made with an Icelandic vodka, but now is truly a house creation.
“I feel that all of these years of learning about tasting and understanding vodka have made us experts in what we want and what we think are the best profiles in a vodka,” Morales says. “The one that we’ve made highlights the things—obviously, it’s all opinion—but it’s what we think is best.”
Kachka’s ideal vodka starts with wheat, which stylistically aligns more with Russian vodka as opposed to a potato base. The wheat base results in a mouthfeel that Morales describes as smooth, luscious, and round-bodied. Flavor-wise, tasting notes lean toward an earthy flavor and natural sweetness imparted by Italian wheat. As the brand grows, one of its goals is to start using Pacific Northwest-grown wheat. Fans of Kachka’s vodka infusions have something to be happy about as well. Over the next year, the distillery will slowly start bottling those for sale.
The journey of infusing vodkas to producing their very own has been over a decade in the making for the Moraleses. The practice was a common one for Morales’ parents in their native Belarus, but it had become somewhat lost as they immigrated to the US and attempted to assimilate to a new culture. In a common refrain of many first-generation immigrant kids, Morales would always preface friends’ and boyfriends’ visits to her parents’ house with the same disclaimer: “Hey, the food’s gonna be weird.” When her now-husband Israel came over, his exhilarated reaction to the dinner that was served surprised both Morales and her family.
“It was special that an outsider was validating their cultural experience for the first time,” Morales says. “I noticed that my mom and dad started doing things and pulling out recipes that I hadn’t even had. We started celebrating it more ourselves.”
Inspiration really struck when Morales and her family took a trip back to Belarus and visited Russia. They sampled a horseradish vodka, which became a life-changing moment. Bonnie’s dad began recounting her parents’ old hobby of infusing vodka, and she was inspired to take it up again. Her family also made nalivka, a liqueur in which macerated fruit and sugar are allowed to naturally ferment.
“This time of year, all summer long, there’s all these jars of things on their windowsill at home…they’re making booze,” Morales says. “They didn’t do that when I was a kid, but they used to do that back when they lived in Belarus. It’s beautiful that they’ve reintroduced that into their lives and that we’re kind of all rediscovering it together.”
For Morales, making infusions, or nastoyka in Russian, is all about capturing the season. Kachka makes them year-round, so folks can expect flavors like sour cherry and dill flower in the summer, and matsutake mushrooms in the fall. Some ingredients, like sea buckthorn and bison grass, are traditional to the Eastern European practice and others are local to the Pacific Northwest.
As for the food, Fabrika’s kitchen intends to highlight specific ingredients and the culture surrounding vodka, whereas the original Kachka’s menu is a reflection of Morales’ childhood. Diners at the distillery can expect to slurp oysters of different varieties, try Eastern European tinned fish, and pluck shellfish off of gilded seafood towers.
“Shellfish and raw bar and seafood-focused is the kind of food that I tend to gravitate towards when I’m having vodka,” Morales says.
The only crossover you’ll find here is Kachka’s dumplings, one of Portland’s stalwart comfort foods. Familiar faves like the farmer’s cheese and sour cherry dumplings are available, but Morales wanted to create a salt cod dumpling to match the spirit of Fabrika. Thus, the brandade vareniki, filled with salt cod and potato, was born. It’s served in a creamy milk broth made from the fish poaching liquid—this byproduct would normally go to waste but Morales decided to tinker with it, adding a drizzle of sunflower oil and finding the missing component of the dish.
The dish’s creation reflects the organic relationship between the bar and the production facility. “When you’re making the product right next door, you have the ability to dance back and forth,” Morales says. “It can create some really beautiful synergy.”
Kachka Fabrika, 2117 NE Oregon, Suite 202, kachkafabrika.com
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Janey Wong
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