Whiskey from a new distillery in the West End will soon be sold at ABC stores in the city, the company’s owner tells ALXnow.
Motherwell Distilling Co. launched operations at 877 S. Pickett Street in December, led by business partners Vince and Marcy Crisler and Andrea and Adam Bennett. The new distillery, which is the first of its kind in Alexandria since the Prohibition era, now has its sights set on distribution.
On a recent weekday, the distillery team bottled and labeled 720 bottles of Motherwell’s Brickwater Bourbon. The booze, which sells for $55 for every 750 ml bottle, is part of a one-time buy from Virginia ABC. It is expected to be distributed throughout Alexandria’s ABC stores within the next several weeks, Vince Crisler said.
“We have 60 cases that we’ve labeled and are ready to go to ABC,” he told ALXnow. “That’s why we’re here today. Once we get that one-time buy completed, it’ll be a lot easier to work with bars and restaurants, because then they can pick it up in the ABC stores.”
Motherwell Distilling Co. can currently be found at Pork Barrel BBQ at 2312 Mount Vernon Avenue and Captain Gregory’s at 804 N. Henry Street. The plan, Vince said, is to expand to 100 local restaurants.
“A hundred bars and restaurants in the in the Northern Virginia area puts us in a really strong position,” he said. “If you think each of those restaurants using eight to 10 bottles a month, you could be at 1,000 bottles a month that you’re selling through here, if you have the capacity to support them.”
This is the second distillery for the Crislers and Bennetts, who opened their first distillery in the Crislers’ hometown of Logan, Ohio, in 2022.
The team currently has 50 investors on board.
“There were the four of us, and then we had one minority partner back in Ohio,” Adam Bennett said. “We needed to bring in investors in the Alexandria area who are bourbon and whiskey folks, and connected in the area.”
Getting started
The Crislers and Bennetts have been friends for 20 years, since military service prompted the Crislers to move to the area from their home state of Ohio. By day, Vince Crisler is the chief information security officer for a cybersecurity firm in Alexandria, and Adam Bennett owns his own cybersecurity firm.
The couples started talking about distilling back in 2018. At the time, Vince said the firm that he was working for was facing financial difficulty.
“We all started talking,” Vince said. “Like, if I could do anything else in the world, what would it be? I love whiskey. We love rum, like it would be really cool to make that. And so the four of us started talking about that and what that could look like.”
In 2022, the team pounced on an opportunity to rent space in Logan, Ohio, a high-tourist area, they said. Within three years, operations expanded to include making bourbon, rye, rum, vodka, gin, and a peach-and-sugar “indulgence” called “The Lubricator.”
“We had a small test still that we were using right when we were first getting started,” Vince said. “We ran a bunch of different things, and ‘The Lubricator,’ I think, was the first product we made out of that test. Then we started getting more complex, getting into all the grain mashes for bourbons and whiskeys, and just nailing down the chemistry, trying all sorts of different yeasts.”
Looking ahead
In Alexandria, Motherwell will soon expand operations to include rye. In the meantime, batches of Brickwater Bourbon are for sale. It’s blended with MGP bourbon from Indiana and finished in rum barrels.
The team also recently purchased an additional property in Ohio to age the whiskey they make in Alexandria.
“Brickwater Bourbon and the Boundary Stone Rye will be our first launches,” Vince said. “Once we get to two, three, four years in, then we’ll be able to have 100% our own juice, and that’ll become a new kind of premium product.”
The Motherwell tasting room is open for private events at the company’s Pickett Street location. Further updates on where to find Motherwell’s products will be made available on the business’ Instagram page.
“We think a core part of our strategy is being involved in the community, doing events like farmers’ markets, supporting local community organizations, being an event space,” Vince said.
