Liberty Pole Spirits going big
With expansion at The Meadows
Mingo Creek Craft Distillers in Washington, Pa., has, since it opened six years ago, helped school people on this region’s Whiskey Rebellion history.
Next week, the family who owns it will break ground on a new “campus” — on 2 acres beside The Street at The Meadows in North Strabane, Washington County, just off Interstate 79 — where they can teach many more people a few things about whiskey and show them a good time.
They’ve scheduled a press event for their destination distillery for Monday, which will be marked by the raising of a liberty pole, which is the brand name of the spirits they make as well as a protest symbol of the 1794 unrest that came to be known as the Whiskey Rebellion.
After the Revolutionary War, the new nation’s government started taxing whiskey that farmers made with rye they managed to
grow on this rocky, clay soil. The farmers protested and didn’t pay it. President George Washington led
troops to Western Pennsylvania to make them.
Pennsylvania rye went on to become a big deal in the 1800s but almost went extinct by the mid-1900s. Mingo Creek is one of the region’s new breed of craft distilleries bringing that spirit back. It also makes bourbon and other whiskeys.
The cozy Liberty Pole Washington tasting room, complete with an upside-down-in-protest portrait of the country’s first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, will stay open for the foreseeable future.
But Jim and Ellen Hough and their sons Rob and Kevin are moving all production to the new spot, which will include a “rack house” with room to store 3,600 barrels of spirits while they age as well as a Colonial-themed tasting room that looks like a stone- and- timber
meeting house, complete with working fireplaces.
The buildout is expected to be completed in early 2023.
This expansion will initially nearly triple Liberty Pole’s production capacity, starting at 550 barrels a year and ramping up to 1,100 barrels per year, thanks to a 1,000-gallon mash cooker, four 1,000gallon fermenters and a 1,000-gallon pot still. The still will be supplied by Vendome Copper and Brass Works of Louisville, Ky., while the mash cooker, fermenters and process control systems will be supplied by Deutsche Beverage Technology of Charlotte, N.C.
It’s not just a production facility they’re building but also a destination and tourist attraction, with tours and tastings, cocktails to drink and small bites to eat, in the Springhouse Bar and in an outdoor gathering space where food trucks can park.
Jim Hough said in a release, “Craft spirits are growing in popularity and destination distilleries are becoming major tourist attractions as can be seen in the recent growth of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. We truly feel that this location on Racetrack Road, just minutes off Interstates 70 and 79, will make this a destination for both whiskey enthusiasts as well as those who are looking for a unique experience.”
His wife and co-founder, Ms. Hough, looks back 225 or so years to note, “We’re proud to be able to honor those early Pennsylvania farmer distillers and the vital role they played in the establishment of American whiskey.”
Says their son, partner and distiller Kevin Hough, “This new campus will truly be a world-class craft whiskey distillery.”
They’re paying for the project with the help of investors, loans and a $500,000 grant from the state Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program.
Other destination distilleries are coming together in the region, including in Somerset County, where Ponfeigh Spirits is rising on a 4-acre former lumber yard.
Liberty Pole Spirits, which earlier this month marked filling its 1,000th barrel, is one of the producers participating in the first Western Pennsylvania Spirits Festival on May 22 at Threadbare Cider on the North Side: paspiritsfest.com.