Women-Owned Queen Bee Distillery Launches Houston Vodka

Over martinis and vodka sodas, Kim Martin and Catharine Faulconer joined their group of pandemic friends one night to have drinks and learn to play mahjong.

They talked about making vodka and wondered if it was possible to create the best-selling neutral alcohol with honey.

Faulconer pulled out a notepad and, between sips of her cocktail, began dividing up the tasks: Martin said she had always wanted to raise bees. One woman said she would handle finances while another would oversee marketing.

The next morning, after everyone woke up, Faulconer asked, “Who wants to do this?”

Only Faulconer and Martin remained with their hands raised.

Nearly four years later, the two friends and Houston residents have launched Queen Bee Distilling with a vodka made with locally sourced honey. Their women-owned company plans to launch other premium spirits — including gin, tequila, whiskey and rum — focused on quality ingredients and sustainability.

“It’s a vodka that exists because of a community of women who support it,” Martin said. “In many ways, it’s a celebration of women.”

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It took chance to reconnect the women of Houston before Queen Bee Distillery became an idea.

Martin and Faulconer are from Tyler, the rose capital of America, and met in elementary school. Their friendship grew out of spending time together in swimming and ballet classes. In high school, they were on the dance team. They joke that their first sips of alcohol probably happened in a barn.

They lost touch after college; after nearly a decade apart, they reunited in Houston in the early 2000s.

Martin and Faulconer met at a preschool orientation for their children and quickly discovered they were neighbors on the same street in Tanglewood. Since that fateful meeting, they said their friendship has only grown stronger over the years.

“We’re just two friends who continue to intertwine in each other’s lives,” Faulconer said.

After years of meeting up for drinks at girls’ nights out, happy hours and girls’ nights out, Faulconer felt there was a lack of options for people concerned about the ingredients used in a variety of spirits.

Faulconer said she suffers from an autoimmune disease in which psoriasis can be triggered by certain ingredients. When the disease hits hard, red spots that look like mosquito bites can appear on her body and face.

When Faulconer ordered drinks, she looked for spirits that didn’t use grains, gluten, nightshades or GMO ingredients. Options were few and far between, and the inspiration for Queen Bee began years before the martini-mahjong night.

With grown children and more free time, the women — both homemakers and regular volunteers at the school — decided to start Queen Bee, even if it was just for themselves and their friends.

“If the smugglers can do it, we can learn how to make vodka,” Martin said.

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They chose bees as their muse because in the honey-making process, it is the female bees who do all the work of collecting the nectar and cultivating it in the combs. That is why they wanted Queen Bee Distilling to involve as many women as possible.

After taking a week-long distilling course in Colorado, the founders met Caley Shoemaker, former head distiller at Hangar 1 Vodka. She now helps them make vodka in New Mexico.

They found Kelly Brantley of Thirsty Bee Meadery in Tomball for their honey. The small business, which Brantley runs with her husband, collects honey from hives located in local community gardens, nurseries and private properties around the suburbs.

For Queen Bee vodka, which is called Osmia, Martin and Faulconer had to buy 500 gallons of mead (a wine made from honey). The vodka, which they describe as crisp and citrusy, comes in a pretty octagonal bottle. It retails for $98 and is sold at Spec’s and restaurants like Tony’s and Carrabba’s.

“It was exciting to be a part of Queen Bee’s journey,” Brantley said. “They took an idea and put it into practice.”

Martin and Faulconer plan to give their line of bee-related spirits different names after the launch of this vodka. Their vodka recently won the Double Gold award at the International Women’s Spirits Competition.

“When we started this relationship, we agreed that if Queen Bee ever ended our friendship, we would destroy it,” Faulconer said. “Friendship is more important than anything else.”