Strip away the ads of lush green fields and the well-lit exterior shots, and a simple truth remains: Making spirits is an industrial process. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Some great spirits have been created in spaces akin to your local car garage full of hoses, pipes, and random containers. At the end of the day, looks don’t matter because taste is king.
That said, reclaiming an old building for your distillery offers many advantages that can make the cost worth it. Visitor centers, tasting rooms, and event spaces are now widely considered must-haves for craft distillers, and making that space a beautiful showpiece to call your own never hurts.
What first attracted you to the building that became your distillery?
Joel Levangia, owner and general manager, Tenmile Distillery: John Dyson, owner and chairman of Tenmile, said he wanted “a dairy barn that isn’t falling in, near a major road.” Given that our farm is sandwiched between Route 22 and a Metro North train station that connects to Grand Central Station in New York City, the “arterial” portion of that directive was pretty well satisfied. The barn’s original construction by New York State in the 1920s included three-foot-thick concrete brick walls, and a famous architect, Allan Shope, who renovated the barn to be a winery with dramatic wood columns supporting the original rafters, hardwood floors, and commercial kitchens and bathrooms. All the building lacked was a set of lunatics who wanted to make single malt whiskey.
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