For all our liquor loving friends, get excited! St. Augustine is jumping into the distilling business, adding another reason to visit our favorite small coastal town. Florida made vodka, whiskey, bourbon, and gin. Oh, and now you can buy it right from the distillery, too.
While that doesn’t sound like a big deal in most states where you can buy as many bottles as you darn well please, it’s a really big deal in Florida.
After 80 years, a law has been signed that now allows customers to buy liquor straight from the distillery, 2 bottles a year. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, it was a huge victory for St. Augustine Distillery Company owners and distillers.
Walking into the super hip, fully restored old ice house in downtown St. Augustine, you almost forget this is the same town where restaurants close at 9pm and people don’t lock their doors. The newly opened St. Augustine Distillery Company offers tours daily that showcase the vision of the company and shows visitors how the liquor is actually made from local Florida products.
I can’t help but feel proud of my community coming together and creating this new business opportunity, bringing dozens of jobs to St. Augustine and using almost all Florida ingredients. It was really fun to spend a Saturday with my family taking the tour and buying our two bottles. Right now they only have vodka to purchase but batches of gin should be available any day. (Check back on their site to find out when each batch is available to purchase.)
If you’ve never been to St. Augustine, you are truly missing a one of a kind vacation experience. The oldest city in America, St. Augustine is part fishing town, part beach bums, part artists’ community, and part history lesson. Growing up in the area, I remember loving the beaches and the seafood and walking down historic St. George street with my girlfriends. It’s a small town that has a lot to offer and always makes me feel like home whenever I return for a visit. Now with the addition of the St. Augustine Distillery Company, this town is also making history in another way too.
ps. If you take a visit to the distillery, make sure to say hi to Phillip for me!
