Meet the Houston Founders of Queen Bee Distilling Who Launched Award-Winning Allergy-Friendly Vodka

Catharine Faulconer and Kim Martin, two Houston women with East Texas roots and a friendship that dates over 45 years are dedicated to making ultra-premium luxury spirits

ABOUT QUEEN BEE DISTILLING:

Queen Bee Distilling was founded by Catharine Faulconer and Kim Martin, who both struggle with autoimmune issues and allergies that require abstaining from grains, gluten, and nightshades. In their search for a spirit that did not originate from these allergens, they saw a need in the market.

Inspired by nature, friendship, and the mighty bee, Queen Bee Distilling was born. Queen Bee’s Osmia Vodka, which recently won Double Gold at the International Women’s Spirits Competition, is a spirit for the discerning who expect perfection and seek transparency. In addition to being gluten, grain, and nightshade-free, this spirit also does not contain any chemicals, glycerin, or artificial additives.

To source the honey, Queen Bee partners with Thirsty Bee Meadery in Tomball, Texas just outside of Houston. By using raw honey instead of corn, rice, barley, wheat, or potatoes, Queen Bee distills an allergen-free, ultra-premium vodka that helps save the bees, promotes sustainability by reducing water usage, and lowers the company’s carbon footprint.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS:

Catharine: Kim and I have been friends since I was in 1st grade and Kim was in Kindergarten in Tyler, TX. Due to my autoimmune issues and being on AIP (autoimmune protocal diet and lifestyle), I had to eliminate gluten, grains, nightshades, genetically modified substances, but I was not willing to give up my evening cocktail with family and friends. I will take certain things off the table, but not my evening cocktail. Well, during a girl’s trip I really wanted a martini and everyone is having one, and my choices were EXTREMELY limited. A seed was planted in my mind, could I make alcohol from honey, which is anti-microbial and anti-bacterial?

Kim: Fast forward to a year later and the onset of Covid. We are sitting around a table playing mahjong and having cocktails. Catharine gets out a piece of paper talks about making vodka from honey and who is interested in joining? I have severe allergies and have been recently diagnosed with EoE – Eosinophil Esophagitis – and have to exclude certain foods from my diet and definitely was intrigued. I sign up for Bee Keeper, one girl at the tale volunteers to do PR and one girl will be the accountant. In the morning after sobering up, I am the only one left standing and have decided bee keeping in August in Houston is not for me. And the next thing I knew, we were signed up to take a distilling class in Denver. Fast forward 4 years, through research and development, we launched our Osmia Vodka. Our first in a full line of spirits that are women focused.

Kim: It was such an organic decision. Since we decided to use honey, and we are woman focused in all that we do, it was only logical to call our company Queen Bee Distilling.

Catharine: In a bee hive, all the workers are female, not that men aren’t important, but that is they way the hive works. We too hire predominately females from our 3 attorneys, our beekeeper, our master distiller, our crew of PR gurus, our bottle designer, our graphics designer, our distributor, we have consciously chosen to break that ceiling.

Kim: We name all of our spirits after bees. The Osmia Bee is a super pollinator in the US of fruit and nut orchards.

Catharine: In our suite of spirits plan, our floral gin is named Carder after the UK super pollinator bee, the Carder Bee.

Kim: And the rest will be a surprise. There are over 20,000 types of bee species in the world and part of this process of starting this business was our desire to learn and challenge ourselves.

Catharine: In our suite of spirits plan, our floral gin is named Carder after the UK super pollinator bee, the Carder Bee

Kim: And the rest will be a surprise. There are over 20,000 types of bee species in the world and part of this process of starting this business was our desire to learn and challenge ourselves. There is nothing we love more than bonding over a cocktail at the end of the evening, and now we can do that with an ultra-premium spirit of our own that’s inspired by nature, friendship, and the mighty queen bee!

MORE INFORMATION:

Please visit QueenBeeDistilling.com and follow along on social at @QueenBeeDistilling.

Photos courtesy of Queen Bee Distilling