Berkshire Mountain Distillers Celebrates 15 Years With Cultural Cocktails (And More)
After a 20-year career in healthcare in California, Chris Weld moved back to New England and to an old apple farm in Sheffield, Massachusetts. With an apple orchard and pristine springs on his property, what could Weld do but turn the barn into a grain-to-glass distillery? That was 15 years ago, when the craft brewer movement existed mostly on the west coast. Berkshire Mountain Distillers became the first craft distillery in the Berkshires since Prohibition. Now it’s a leading, regionally focused maker of small-batch, award-winning craft spirits, with 25 to 30 blends of gin (called the “#1 craft gin in the country” by The New York Times) plus bourbon, corn whiskey, vodka, and rum. BMD welcomes visitors to the distillery, where tastings, live music at the newly installed pavilion and a farm stand put the genial in the gin.
This weekend, the company will kick off its 15th anniversary celebrations with BMD Cultural Cocktails, a mixed-drink program created in homage to the arts in the Berkshires. Local bartenders have created craft cocktail recipes for 16 cultural organizations that are being served in restaurants and bars. “We’re stepping back and taking a moment to reflect on how fortunate we are to have such great culture in the Berkshires,” Weld says. “They need audiences, and restaurants need people to support them. A cross pollination between the food service industry and cultural institutions is a way to bring everyone together and acknowledge what we have in the Berkshires.”
You don’t need to be a Berkshires insider to appreciate the names of the cocktails dreamed up by local bartenders, but it helps. For the Trustees, there’s the Berkshire Sunset (a spin on the Negroni); for Hancock Shaker Village, it’s the Shakered Not Stirred (a take on the Gold Rush). Recipes for these cleverly named recipes are available on the BMD website.
Collaboration isn’t anything new for Berkshire Mountain Distillers. A six-year partnership with craft brewers is in its final round. The Craft Brewers Whiskey Project has distilled a dozen beers to bring together the craft distillery and craft beer worlds, and to combine the flavors and essences of some of the best and well-known craft beers in the country. The last three whiskies were distilled from beer sourced form Long Trail Brewing Company, Two Roads Brewing, and Chatham Brewing.
Eight years ago, Weld moved his operations from the original barn to a newly built production facility in Sheffield. The property has three greenhouses on site, where BMD grows its own botanicals. A tasting room with free complimentary tasting flights, a store, an outdoor bar, and the covered pavilion make it a welcoming destination to try, buy, and hang out for a while.
“We’re trying to create more of a social atmosphere,” Weld says. “We put in the pavilion last year. We’re building a farm stand, and going to have live music on a satellite stage from Berkshire Busk Roadside every Saturday.”
“When I started the distillery, there weren’t many of the east coast, and only about 50 in the country,” Weld says. “Over the last 15 years, the number has grown, much like the craft brewer movement.” (Weld also co-founded The Pass, a cannabis dispensary a few steps down the road—you can enjoy a bar and bud experience in one two-part visit, if that’s your thing.)
With around 2500 licensed craft distilleries in the U.S. (and a good number of them in our region), does the competition worry him? Not a bit.
“We go with the concept of a rising tide floats all boats,” Weld says. “Napa wouldn’t be Napa with just one winery.”
Check the website for a schedule of events.
Berkshire Mountain Distillers
356 South Main Street, Sheffield, MA
(413) 229-0219
Distillery open for complimentary tasting and self-guided tour daily, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.
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