St. George Spirits was founded as America's first eau de vie distillery in 1982 by Jörg Rupf.

On a visit to the University of California at Berkeley in the late 1970s, he decided to stay and distill local fruit to produce eau de vie.

[4][5][6] Hangar 1 Vodka was founded in 2001,[7] with Rupf overseeing production and Coale handling design and marketing.

[11] Hangar 1 is a small batch vodka made from a blend of pot-distilled Viognier grapes and column still-distilled American wheat.

It provided some of the coverage for California sporting events, including San Francisco Giants games.