A husband-and-wife brand from Los Angeles, distilling botanicals with no alcohol involved at any stage.
Tommy and Lisa Farr Johnstone moved to Los Angeles and found their habits changing — farmers markets and hiking where bars used to be. What they could not find was anything worth ordering when they went out, so in January 2020 they started making it.
They spent eighteen months with a master distiller in downtown LA developing three blends, each drawn from a different part of the city and its edges: the coastline, the canyons, the desert. Ten to fifteen botanicals go into each, pulled apart by steam, vacuum and CO2 extraction rather than by soaking in spirit.
Optimist is a certified B Corp, and the founders put their weight behind a Venice non-profit working with young people experiencing homelessness.
- Producer
- Optimist Botanicals
- Based in
- Los Angeles, United States
- Founded
- 2020
- Founder
- Tommy and Lisa Farr Johnstone
- Sizes
- 500 mL
