Cheers and happy 10th anniversary to Wigle Whiskey, the opening of which, in March 2012, helped open the way for other Pennsylvania spirits-makers.
That spring, the Strip District distillery became the first to open in the city since Prohibition, and one of just a couple in a state that at one point was filled with stills and was famous for Pennsylvania rye. The family behind Wigle, named for a figure in the local post-Revolutionary War Whiskey Rebellion, argued that it took so long for distilleries to come back, in part, because of Pennsylvania laws that still precluded distilleries from selling spirits directly to customers — in bottles to take away or in glasses to sip on site.
Selling direct was a big part of the business plan of the Meyers’, who knew from the craft beer industry and wine world that people like to drink at the source. That was a big reason they leased a building in the Strip District. They didn’t just want to wholesale bottles to the state to be sold at state liquor stores or to bars and restaurants.
Others were pushing to have the laws loosened too.
But as co-founder and owner Meredith Meyer Grelli vividly remembers, the Pennsylvania house bill was tabled while they paid rent and rehabbed their building, for which they already had commissioned a German still. The added uncertainty kept them up at nights, many of which were spent lobbying for the changes. She and her husband kept their day jobs.
At the very end of 2011, the Legislature passed what became known as Act 113, which allowed in 2012 a new class of “limited” distillery — limited to producing 100,000 gallons of distilled liquor a year — to sell its products directly to the public not just in bottles but also in glasses to drink. And not just at the production space, but also at two satellite locations. Such distilleries also could offer free or for-fee tastings.
These days you might think that it was always so, but no. When Boyd & Blair started distilling vodka in Shaler in 2008, you had to taste it and buy it elsewhere.
A regional boomlet to a PA boom
Once distilleries could retail themselves, others jumped into the business, including Tim Russell, who opened a Strip District distillery to make Maggie’s Farm rum in 2013, at the start of a regional boomlet of small distilleries that put Pittsburgh on the craft spirits map. The region makes everything from absinthe to amaro, potato vodka to pineapple rum, plus Monongahela rye and many other whiskies, including unaged moonshines in a rainbow of flavors, such as Blackberry Lavender Lemonade. Relatively new Burgess & Burgess Distillery in Washington, Pa., just started selling its agave spirit, which you could think of as PA-quila, in a couple of Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores.
So many spirits makers have opened across the state in the past decade that, in August 2021, Pennsylvania moved up to the No. 5 spot in terms of states with the most active craft distilleries — 117, up more than 7% from the previous year. That’s out of 2,290 in the country, just more than 1% more than the previous year, according to the Craft Spirits Data Project. The top four states are California, Washington, New York and Texas, but Pennsylvania showed more growth than any of those.
In fact, the Pennsylvania Distillers Guild now counts more than 140 distilleries, says its president, Robert Cassell. Having opened Philadelphia Distilling in 2005, he led the push to allow Pennsylvania distilleries to sell direct. Now his many industry roles include being founder, in 2014, of Philadelphia’s New Liberty Distilling and co-founder of Connacht Whiskey Co. in Ireland.
More distilleries are on the way, including at least three big tourist destination distilleries that are in the works in Western Pennsylvania.
One is on the South Side, beside the Liberty Bridge in what was the Joseph S. Finch & Co distillery, before Prohibition shut it down. The Distillery at South Shore is to be a lot of things — a marketplace, several restaurants, a cigar club, a rooftop bar and grill. But partner Bill Stolze says “we are planning on Big Spring Spirits being the beating heart of the project, representing the return of a distillery to the building,” thanks to the Bellefonte, Centre County, distillery that also has a restaurant and tasting room in Seven Fields in Cranberry Country. The South Side project recently raised more than $250,000 in what was to be a $100,000 crowdfunding campaign.
Meanwhile, Ponfeigh Distillery is coming together on a former 4-acre lumberyard just east of Somerset, where Maximilian Merrill wants to revive that area’s distilling heritage. The main, 20,000-square-foot building, with 22-plus-foot-high ceilings, will hold a retail store and museum as well as a bar and tables, where guests can sip the Monongahela and Maryland ryes aged and eventually distilled on site. Outside will be a music venue with room for 4,000 visitors. The operation already is aging rye from local grain distilled at Southern Distilling Co. in Statesville, N.C.
And Liberty Pole Spirits is planning to expand and eventually move from its former monument shop in downtown Washington, Pa., to a big distillery on 2 acres at The Meadows in North Strabane, just off Interstate 79. Early plans are for an 8,000-square-foot production facility and 4,000-square-foot barrel aging building, plus a 2,400-square-foot tasting room for guests, who also can gather in space outside.
None of these projects have announced opening dates.
Celebrating state spirits
Also expanding is tiny Lucky Sign Spirits, which is currently moving production from its 880-square-foot Millvale storefront into an 11,711-square-foot space in West Deer that co-owner Christian Kahle says should open to customers around April or May.
MAP IT He’s organizing at least 15 distilleries so far to be part of the first Western Pennsylvania Spirits Festival, to be held May 22 at Threadbare Cider, Wigle Whiskey’s sister business, on the North Side. Attendees can sample all the spirits and buy bottles, using a bottle service where they can pick them up to take home. Tickets are $45 at paspiritsfest.com.
Such an event has been talked about by people in the industry for a while now, especially since the Pittsburgh Whiskey Festival started requiring participating distilleries to pour only products that are carried in state Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores, which shuts out smaller businesses and product lines.
“I think I’m the first one to realize there is enough critical mass to do it,” says Mr. Kahle, who is inviting all area distilleries to join in. He believes most people don’t realize how many distilleries there are in these parts, and he gives a lot of credit to Wigle. He still has a bottle of the clear, or unaged, the distillery sold at the start.
“We thank them all the time,” he says. “We know we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.” Nor would so many other distilleries, which tend to be small local places, like distilleries used to be when they dotted the landscape in the 1700s and 1800s.
Wigle’s Ms. Grelli says her family’s company wanted to reclaim some of the state’s whiskey heritage, especially. It was a risky, scary start, but looking back now, after ups including industry awards and downs including the COVID-19 pandemic, “It’s been an incredibly enriching, challenging and rewarding experience for the past decade.” Now also an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, she marvels at the changes in the industry as well as in Pittsburgh.
In 2012, customers couldn’t even tell them what they expected from a distillery experience. What they got — a family member leading them on a tour back to a tasting room where other family members poured them a pre-batched cocktail — is a long way from the full restaurant, bars and retail room that greets them today. And now Wigle isn’t afraid to put the words “whiskey” on the exterior. “We just didn’t know what the response would be,” she says. “Which sounds insane now.”
To celebrate, Wigle, throughout March, it’s partnering with other Pittsburgh businesses and institutions on giveaways its offering every Wednesday and Saturday via social media. The distillery also is releasing its oldest whiskey to date — an 8-year-old single barrel that just became available to order for March 23 pickup for $75 a bottle.
Another Western Pennsylvania Spirits Festival participant, which just popped up in 2021, is the tiny Still Mill Distillery, which describes itself as an “actual small-batch distillery” and is open just on Fridays and Saturdays in Swissvale. Also new is 2 JAS Distillery, run by two guys in a former shopping center on Camp Horne Road in Kilbuck who, for now, just sell their bottles of rum for pickup there or at Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores.
But we have all kinds of distilleries, including one, Aging Room, that started to service a private club. West Overton Village and Museum near Scottdale, Westmoreland County — the original home of the distillery that made Old Overholt rye — this fall started selling the first whiskey made there since Prohibition to tourists on the Whiskey Rebellion Trail and the Laurel Highlands Pour Tour and other visitors. It reopens in May.
Pennsylvania’s laws now allow for all kinds of wrinkles, says Mr. Kahle as he works in his original Millvale location, which they plan to keep, even after moving production to West Deer. “Eventually,” he says, “we want to turn this into a craft cocktail bar.”
Just a decade ago, that would have been unthinkable.
More: Read all about Pennsylvania distilleries and trails at the Pennsylvania Distillers Guild.
Bob Batz Jr.: bbatz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1930 and on Twitter @bobbatzjr.
First Published: March 1, 2022, 11:00 a.m.
Updated: March 1, 2022, 11:15 a.m.
