04/03/2024
Okay, it’s been nothing short of entertaining following the rumors about what’s happening, where we’ve been, what we’ve done, and what we’re doing; however, it’s time to put the rumors to bed. Stick with me if you will this may be a tad long winded.
The short version if you don’t care to read is “We’re Back”!
Otherwise, think back to all the early COVID madness when we dug into the hand sanitizer thing. Just prior to that time our North Houston lease was expiring and we were exploring options to build our own stand alone Distillery. We had a few potential locations selected and held numerous meetings with various interested parties to determine the best home for us. Then right smack dab in the middle of it, everything got shut down. With no open tasting room (which accounted for roughly 30% of our revenue), we were questioning survival like so many other businesses. About two weeks passed and as we’re contemplating laying off our employees an email came to our general mailbox from Texas Children’s Hospital. They were looking for several thousand gallons of hand sanitizer. We thought about it and decided that we could make it happen. So we put together the materials and let them know that we could donate it. The thinking was that we could build up some good will in the community and potentially that would translate to retail shelves to help make up for the loss in the tasting room. Well, we filled the Texas Children’s request and ended up having quite a bit left over. So we decided to just open our doors and start handing the stuff out for free to anybody that pulled up, and man did they pull up! Now, our tasting room was closed so we couldn’t make drinks, but we could sell bottles, and people were happy to buy them. So, we decided to keep the donations going. This brought all the news cameras and media outlets to our doorstep. Once the news spread we started getting emails from people and large entities all over the country asking us to make hand sanitizer for them. We were like…. Ummm, okay, we can do this, but we’re going to need A LOT of help. It just so happened our industry friends on the bar and restaurant side were all out of work as their businesses were shut down. So, we reached out in a few community groups and next thing we knew, we had gone from closing our doors with 8 employees to running 24/7 with 150+ employees. Many of you will remember these days. Just absolutely bananas. Anyway, that all ended about as quickly as it began, and we were basically back to square one and looking for a new home, but now we were in a bit of a time crunch. We were offered a sublease on an already permitted location in town. The old Buffalo Bayou Brewery. It checked all the immediate boxes and we felt it would be suitable for a couple of years at least. Well, we get moved in, do a remodel on the location and had barely opened the doors when we start to get news of the breweries troubles. Since we were subleasing their location, we started having serious concerns and incidentally, we were once again in a hurry to move. Now, the distilleries in Texas are a fairly tight knit group. That is to say we all talk. This was especially true during the days of hand sanitizer. There was a great deal of camaraderie between us. We shared resources, vendors, regulatory information, and it was a really cool thing to be a part of. The kind of stuff that makes you proud to be a Texan. Well here locally in Houston we worked quite a bit with the team at Gulf Coast Distillers. They were aware of our situation and we even chatted casually about teaming up on occasion. That said, when we needed to move quickly we reached out to our friends and they welcomed us in. Many conversations happened between my brother and I, but ultimately we decided that we aren’t in our late 20s/early 30s anymore, and we needed to be more focused on our families and children. So, rather than start over from scratch, a joint move with an already established partner made sense. Now it has taken some time to get all of the legal and regulatory red tape out of the way, but we’re happy to announce that we have joined up with Gulf Coast and our new home is at their distillery downtown in the old Uncle Ben’s rice plant. Our production is up and running full speed, and our products are now available in the tasting room. It’s important to note that my brother Chris and I still own 100% of our company and brand, and we are also still very much involved. What Gulf Coast has built here is nothing short of impressive. It is the largest distillery west of the Mississippi River and it’s right here in Houston! If you haven’t been yet you should definitely come check it out. The hours and address are listed on our page. Also, please stay tuned, we have some new product releases coming up as well as upcoming events, including our 12 year Anniversary party! Lastly, thank you all so much for all of the support over the years! We’re looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. 🥃 - Travis Whitmeyer
