Microdistilleries Test Market

Local microdistilleries try to cash in on tourism opportunities under a new state law.  One has a historic past:

The Duers have no immediate plans to try to match those numbers with their rye whiskeys. The couple — who named their venture Indian Creek Distillery after the creek that flows through their property, and because that’s the business name Elias Staley used in the early 1800s — will produce two types of rye whiskey, one of which will carry the same Staley Rye Whiskey name that the family produced in the 19th century. The other spirit will be un-aged and will be called Revolution Rye whiskey. The first bottles of Revolution Rye should be available for sale this summer, with the aged Staley Rye unveiled later this year after spending some seven to eight weeks in 15-gallon oak barrels.

The distillery’s two small, antique copper stills will limit production to small batches, and each batch will be bottled uncut at varying alcoholic proof levels with the intent of “capturing the frontier spirit in a bottle,” Melissa Duer said.

The couple hasn’t set a price yet for the two rye whiskeys. “It’s not going to be inexpensive, but it’s going to be worth the price,” Melissa Duer said.

Although the distillery and tasting room are newly constructed, Amish builders designed the new building to fit in with the older structures on the Duers’ property, including a grist mill built in 1818.

Melissa Duer is the sixth generation of her family to live in the farmhouse on the property.

Among the documents in the Duers’ possession are doctor prescriptions from the 1800s prescribing “one quart of your finest whiskey” for various ailments, and letters from a Civil War soldier requesting that a bottle of Staley’s Rye Whiskey be sent to him.

That farm also has an old grist mill which local teens flock to because of a legend that the place was haunted.  When I was a kid, we called it the "Bloody Barn."