Ex-Marine starting microdistillery in Lewisville
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LEWISVILLE — Stationed in Africa, where quality liquor was expensive and hard to come by, Quentin Witherspoon and his thirsty Marine buddies became “jailhouse hooch” moonshiners out of necessity in the early 1990s.
Now, after a circuitous journey through the spirits world, Witherspoon has gone legit and joined the burgeoning craft distilling movement that is sweeping across Texas and the country. On Jan. 22, Quentin D. Witherspoon Distillery, based in a small light-industrial park in Lewisville, will release River Rum, the first in a line of liquors that will eventually include a blended whiskey, a single malt whiskey, an aged rum and spiced rum. If that weren’t enough, the distillery is also working on a pure vanilla extract. Witherspoon, 41, who earned a sommelier certificate while stationed at the U.S. embassy in France, came home to Flower Mound in 1995 and planted a vineyard that was a “complete flop.” He then moved to Charleston, S.C., to become a home builder. But he also tapped into the region’s long history of underground distilling. “It’s part of the culture of the South,” he said. “It was a hobby, and after a while it bordered on a second income. We were making pretty much everything under the sun.” He also worked as an electrical contractor in the Caribbean, where he started picking up tips on making rum. “It’s fairly simple to make but not easy to master,” Witherspoon said, noting that his drinking friends were soon asking for his rum instead of his corn whiskey. “That’s when I knew I had something,” he said. With the home-building market lagging, Witherspoon decided to make the plunge and become a legal distiller. He moved back to Texas in November 2011 to be closer to his family and went to work as a TSA screening supervisor at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. In April, he finally found the 4,500-square-feet Lewisville site for the distillery. It took five more months to set up the operation, and he got a federal distiller’s license in September. Witherspoon bought a small still in Kentucky and built a larger 140-gallon still with the help of his father, a metal fabricator, and Doug Kearns, a still craftsman. “It’s a crude prototype, but it is working really well. If you bought it, it would cost about $100,000 not including heating equipment, and we built it for about $20,000,” said Witherspoon, who spends four days a week at the distillery and three days working at the airport. “I did my homework for a long time. Being a government bureaucrat, I learned to speak the language and that helped” navigate the red tape in securing a distilling license, he said. “Setting up a shop like this from scratch, you’re looking at a big outlay of cash. It’s not for the faint of heart,” he said. He won’t divulge his start-up costs or investors but says he has spent $100,000 so far with a lot more expenses to come. Ryan Dehart, a friend from the Marines and Charleston, is working as CFO, and Witherspoon’s brother, Mike Maisano, serves as plant manager. Besides a couple of other employees, there’s also no shortage of volunteers wanting to pitch in, Witherspoon said. Dehart likens the microdistilling industry as following in the path cut by craft brewers. “People are interested in local products. The rum market is dominated by five companies who have 95 percent of all sales. It’s a market that is ready for change, especially with a lot of craft distilleries coming out with really tasty products,” Dehart said. Nationally, the number of craft distilleries has skyrocketed from just over 200 in 2010 to about 400, with 50 more in the works, according to Bill Owens, president of the American Distilling Institute. Witherspoon says about 24 craft distilleries are operating in Texas, including Firestone Robertson Distillery, which opened this year in Fort Worth selling a blended whisky and producing bourbon that won’t be on the market for at least two years. Many of the Texas operations are making vodka, including Austin-based Tito’s Handmade Vodka, the most successful and first microdistillery in the state, which opened in 1997. At least two other microdistilleries are selling rum — San Leon-based Railean Rum and Cyprus Creek Reserve Rum in Wimberley — with award-winning Balcones Distillery in Waco planning to roll out its version next year. Rum will be the Lewisville distillery’s flagship product with River Rum followed by rum aged in small 5-gallon oak casks to speed up the maturation process and spiced rum in late 2013. Witherspoon is also partnering with Kirk Wilson, an Allen-based wine distributor, on a joint venture to produce Quentin D. Witherspoon’s Master Blended Whiskey to be released in March, followed by Cross Timbers Single Malt Whiskey in a year or so. “I think people will be blown away by the whiskey. It’s a really tasty sipping whiskey,” Wilson said. It is also being aged in small casks to speed the aging process. For now, the operation has the capacity to produce up to 100 cases or 600 bottles a day. Two additional stills are planned, and new bottling equipment will be able to handle more than 75,000 cases a year, Witherspoon said. With a distributor lined up, River Rum will be available first in the Metroplex and then across Texas, he said. Witherspoon says what sets his rum apart from the big industry producers is that it won’t be so heavily filtered, which removes a lot of flavors. “You can achieve a balance of very complex flavors doing a good fermentation, a good distillation and not stripping away all the good flavor. You don’t need to age it — age will add more to it — but you are starting with a winner,” he said. He describes River Rum as a smooth white rum with vanilla, cherry and gingerbread notes. “It’s perfectly enjoyable all by itself — no burn, no aftertaste, no bitterness,” he said. The newborn distillery has already had confirmation of River Rum’s winning taste, picking up silver medals at the Los Angeles International Wine Spirits Competition and MicroLiquor Spirit Competition in June, Dehart said. He adds that the gold medalist in the Los Angeles competition was an 8-year-old Bacardi rum “which is a really different class of spirits.” Witherspoon said the awards were a big moment. “That kind of formed it up for us. We knew we were on the right path,” he said. Steve Campbell, 817-390-7981
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