Employers: Artisan distillers and spirits makers

Openings: Apprentice with someone you admire

Salary Cap: Low six figures

Number of Jobs: About 150 in the U.S.

On a day in October, the smell of pears permeates the air in the near-empty airplane hangar in the former Navy yard at Alameda, California, where Winters, the co-owner of St. George Spirits, is fermenting and distilling over a quarter of a million pounds of Bartlett pears for an incredibly flavorful spiced-pear vodka and an eau-de-vie (water of life) fruit brandy.

"My first whiskey I made 18 years ago, and it's still as good as the day I made it," Winters says.

Winters's technical knowledge and finely honed sense of taste have helped earn St. George many accolades and a devoted following over the years, particularly for the company's Hangar One vodka and Winter's craftsmanship, from a Kaffir-lime-infused vodka to single-malt whiskies to the first absinthe produced in the United States since 1912 (the ban on domestic production of the much-maligned spirit was lifted last year), has even inspired an eponymous cocktail at Hearth Restaurant, an Italian eatery in New York's East Village frequented by spirits connoisseurs. The Lance Winters is a combination of Hangar One Buddha's Hand Citron, caramelized citrus syrup, soda, St. George's Absinthe Verte, and straw. According to the restaurant, the drink is an ode to Winters's ability to produce flavored vodkas that are "a mixologist's dream."

Not far from the hangar, Winters used to spend his days in the reactor room aboard a Navy aircraft carrier as a nuclear engineer. But he wasn't passionate about his job, and so in the mid-'80s he quit the Navy and started making his own beer at home, paying for his creative career change with stints working at local brewpubs.

Eventually he began working with master distiller Jörg Rupf, with whom he would go on to create Hangar One vodka in 2001 after the pair realized there was an opportunity to apply eau-de-vie fruit-distilling techniques to making premium vodka. 

Now St. George Spirits sells over 50,000 cases a year of Hangar One vodkas, single-malt whiskey, Qi tea-based liqueurs, Absinthe Verte, and a number of eau-de-vie. Winter's days are filled with overseeing the distillations, researching and developing new tastes, and creating unique liqueurs—such as a new tequila and a chipotle vodka whose recipe was put together on cocktail napkins.

Back when he was in the Navy and stationed aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, Winters remembers thinking how much better life would be if he just had some wine or spirits to go along with his beautiful views of the San Francisco Bay.

"Now I have that view, and I have 150 barrels of whiskey. And I am happy," says Winters. "That's my life goal that I have achieved."