![]() There’s also a tiny experimental setup, an alembic-head pot, a hybrid rig that’s now devoted to rum production and the doubler attached to that two-foot diameter Vendome. An odorous lesson was learned when a first batch of whiskey ran through that stainless steel, sans copper, all those years ago. There’s the stainless steel gin still with botanical basket, which is a remnant of those first experiments. Within the stillhouse today, there are half a dozen different toys to play with. Cherney’s initial forays into the world of distillation started small, about a dozen years ago “I was the first employee at Ballast Point, about 28 years ago now,” he says.īack then, he was focusing on home brewing equipment and sales. ![]() Cherney, of course, was also the former COO of Ballast Point. “We developed what was then Ballast Point Spirits within the brewery, and we already had all this stuff on order,” says Yuseff Cherney, Cutwater’s founder and master distiller, as he waves his arm toward the current distillery. Beyond all that beautiful Vendome copper, visitors move past a wall of awards on their way inside, likely for a meal and a few drinks, and oblivious to all the action taking place in the other half of the building: the state of the art laboratory, an array of stills, the canning and bottling lines noisily performing their countless and thankless tasks, the worker bees buzzing around pallet after pallet. The building’s sharp-edged architecture, flowing water and various stylistic and design elements call to mind the naval inspiration of its name. The distillery is also home to a full restaurant, bar and de facto tasting room that would be the envy of almost every other distillery in the country if they caught a glimpse of it. That traces back to the distillery’s roots as a piece of Ballast Point, and yes, even precedes Ballast Point’s billion-dollar acquisition by Constellation Brands. Spirits production is serious business at Cutwater, and it always has been. ![]() No, you see the glass-encased 35-foot tall Vendome column still the distillery keeps constantly firing away. Stroll through the main entrance of Cutwater Spirits, though, and you don’t see a skyline of RTDs welcoming you within. While Cutwater’s spirits themselves are highly touted - and deservedly, as I can attest several award-winning Cutwater pours have passed my lips during blind tasting at the American Distilling Institute’s annual judging event - make no mistake about it, ABI was ready to buy because of Cutwater’s ready to drink. Business is booming, and surely you’ve heard, after all, that it was a beer conglomerate that purchased Cutwater, when AB InBev made its first foray into spirits in early 2019. It’s a temple and a testament to the power of the RTD, and with some simple back of the envelope math - if there are 60 24-can cases to a pallet, with three or four pallets piled atop one another in dozens upon dozens of these staggering stacks - you can easily estimate there being hundreds of thousands of cans back there. Step into the cavernous warehouse of Cutwater Spirits - located in the Miramar neighborhood of San Diego, an area first made famous as the actual site of the Top Gun program at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar before becoming a hub for a cohort of local brewers and distilleries - and prepare to be awed by its mammoth multicolored towers of cans soaring to the ceiling.
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