Manifest Distilling to open in Downtown Jacksonville

[Tacachale]

New distillery to open in Downtown Jacksonville
Nov 6, 2015, 1:41pm EST Updated Nov 6, 2015, 1:58pm EST

Alexa Epitropoulos
Reporter
Jacksonville Business Journal


A new distillery has plans to go into the same Downtown building as the future site of Intuition Ale Works, the company announced on Friday.

Manifest Distilling will go into 929 E. Bay Street – the building that Intuition announced it would move into in September of last year, according to its website. When Intuition founder Ben Davis announced the move, he said the brewery would be leasing about 60 percent of the 36,000-square-foot building.

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http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2015/11/06/new-distillery-to-open-in-downtown-jacksonville.html

[thelakelander]

Nice!

[Charles Hunter]

Maybe the distillery will get started before Intuition. I drive by frequently, and it doesn't look like anything is happening there.

[Bill Hoff]

Distillery will open in spring, brewery is shooting for summer.

[Intuition Ale Works]

It's illegal in the state of Florida for a distillery to sell it's product for on-premise consumption. They can do tastings and sell 4 bottles to go per customer per year. This is why there are very few distilleries in Florida.

The Ice Plant in St. Augustine originally wanted to be a restaurant, cocktail lounge and distillery until the state got involved. The Distillery and Ice Plant are 2 separate entities with 2 sets of owners. The spirits distilled on site must be sold and shipped to a distributor and that distributor then sells the spirit, produced basically in the same building, to the Ice Plant.

[Tacachale]

It's illegal in the state of Florida for a distillery to sell it's product for on-premise consumption. They can do tastings and sell 4 bottles to go per customer per year. This is why there are very few distilleries in Florida.

The Ice Plant in St. Augustine originally wanted to be a restaurant, cocktail lounge and distillery until the state got involved. The Distillery and Ice Plant are 2 separate entities with 2 sets of owners. The spirits distilled on site must be sold and shipped to a distributor and that distributor then sells the spirit, produced basically in the same building, to the Ice Plant.

Yes, the state doesn't make it easy to get into this type of business. St. Augustine Distillery has to sell liquor to a distributor who then sells it again to the Ice Plant. That's a lot of money to move some liquor from one side of a building to another.

Ben, will the Intuition bar be able to purchase and serve this distillery's liquor? Otherwise I assume they'll just have to do what everyone else does and hope there's interest quickly from other bars and liquor stores.

[Jason]

Excellent news!

[thelakelander]

Manifest Distilling aims to start production this summer

Manifest Distilling's construction plans include a bar, an event space and a private tasting room – but the key piece of the distillery's business model will be going on behind the event space's glass garage doors.

Manifest partner David Cohen said the distillery aims to start production in July or August, and open sometime shortly after.

Cohen and partner Trey Mills said the distillery's business model will be based mostly on sales and distribution, due to the law constraints of serving Manifest liquor on site. The bar area is designed with the intention of turning it into a full-service bar if the law changes.

Full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2016/05/02/manifest-distilling-aims-to-start-production-this.html