Republic Restoratives co-founder Pia Carusone gives Hillary Clinton the first bottle of Rodham Rye. (Photo courtesy of Pia Carusone)

After saving it for months, the co-founder of Republic Restoratives gave former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the first bottle of Rodham Rye, the rye whiskey she inspired, this past weekend.

The first female-owned distillery in D.C. bills Rodham Rye as “a selection of whiskies that are stronger together than apart.”

So how were they able to get a bottle in the hands of their muse?

One of the distillery’s owners, Pia Carusone, was previously the chief of staff for former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and still does part-time political consulting work for Giffords and other clients. This past weekend, Hillary Clinton spoke at the ceremony commissioning a combat ship as the USS Gabrielle Giffords in Galveston, Texas.

Carusone and co-owner Rachel Gardner had been saving the very first bottle, labeled with “001,” for the former presidential candidate. Huma Abedin, Clinton’s longtime aide, got “002,” and press secretary Nick Merrill received “046.”

While Carusone had met Clinton before, this was the first time she was “able to introduce myself in the context of the distillery,” she says. “I was able to give her a bottle and talk to her a few minutes about the business and about Ivy City and warehouse districts that are doing interesting things to revitalize neighborhoods.”

She called the conversation “lovely,” though they didn’t drink the rye together. “This was right before the ceremony on Saturday morning, so that would have not been a good idea,” says Carusone. “I suggested that she crack it open on the plane ride home.”

Clinton tweeted her thanks to Carusone and Gardner on Sunday.

Since then, Carusone says that they’ve received a lot of emails and social media interest in the whiskey that mirrors when it was first released.

“The people calling to find out how they could buy it had area codes from everywhere—Omaha, Utah, Arkansas,” says Carusone.”Often women, a little older—about my mom’s age—probably mourning the loss of the election and looking for a way to toast to Hillary and all of the great women in our lives.”

Clinton wouldn’t be the first alum of her campaign to own a bottle of Rodham Rye. In April, a slew of local campaign staffers from the 2016 effort met for a happy hour at Republic Restoratives. “It turned out to be shortly after the release of Rodham Rye—it was obviously great to have them all in. They’d been working so hard they hadn’t had time to see any new distilleries,” says Carusone.

So what’s the biggest similarity between owning a distillery and working in politics? “Besides the heavy drinking?” Carusone laughs. She says starting a business in Ivy City is “like viewing the policy issues I’ve worked on and fought for through a different lens.”

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