Whiskey-making revived at mill site

IN GOOD SPIRITS: Mike Reppucci, owner of Sons of Liberty Spirits Co., shows off his whiskey. He makes it in 3,000 square feet of leased space in the Peacedale Mill complex with distilling equipment that includes a 20-foot-tall, 250-gallon Vendome copper still. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE
IN GOOD SPIRITS: Mike Reppucci, owner of Sons of Liberty Spirits Co., shows off his whiskey. He makes it in 3,000 square feet of leased space in the Peacedale Mill complex with distilling equipment that includes a 20-foot-tall, 250-gallon Vendome copper still. / PBN PHOTO/DAVID LEVESQUE

It’s become a common question-and-answer scenario when Mike Reppucci tells someone about his business, Sons of Liberty Spirits Co.
“Did you know that whiskey starts as beer?” Reppucci asks.
“No kidding?” is usually the response.
“We brew a stout beer and we turn it into whiskey,” Reppucci says.
“No kidding?”
“I’m Mike and I make it in Rhode Island,” Reppucci says as a personal introduction.
“No kidding? You make whiskey in Rhode Island?”
Yes, Reppucci makes whiskey in 3,000-square-feet of leased space in the Peacedale Mill complex with distilling equipment that includes a 20-foot-tall, 250-gallon Vendome copper still. It was made by a fourth-generation Kentucky business, Vendome Copper and Brass Works, which serves the brewing industry worldwide.
“We had to bump out a section of the roof so it would fit,” Reppucci said.
He also bumped out a section of a career path in finance that he thought might lead to something like a hedge fund.
Reppucci majored in business and economics at Brown University and worked in finance for eight years. Then he went to get a master’s degree in finance at London Business School.
“While I was over there, I drank a lot of scotch,” he said.
By now, he is used to explaining a difference that became clear to him and led to Sons of Liberty Spirits Company.
“All whiskey is a spirit distilled from grains. The American whiskey tradition is defined by bourbon. Bourbon is over 50 percent corn,” Reppucci said. “Single-malt whiskey is over 50 percent malted barley. And scotch is a domain-specific designation. It’s a single-malt whiskey made in Scotland.”
He spotted a niche market in the U.S.
“Why is no one doing the stout beers we love and turning them into whiskey?” he thought.
So he decided to do it. The name Sons of Liberty is in the spirit of revolutionizing American whiskey, and the spirit of the American dream – taking a leap onto a path that calls to you.
“At the time, I was 30 years old, had a good background in finance and no experience in running a distillery,” he said.
At first, he took his business plan to private investors but found little interest.
He decided to self-finance, which seemed the easiest and most direct route to launching the business. He got a federal distiller’s license. Getting a state license was hard, because it seemed no distilleries had been licensed in the state since the 1800s, Reppucci said.
And while some small businesses complain the state isn’t supportive, Reppucci found the opposite in going through the requirements to get a state license.
“I got a huge amount of help from Sherri Carrera, the small-business ombudsman,” he said. Carrera is in the Office or Regulatory Reform in the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.
Some help in day-to-day operations is from family. While his family thinks of Sons of Liberty as “Mike’s business,” a couple of family members are on the ground working, said his mother, Carol Reppucci.
“If you had asked me in my 30s if I would have been the bookkeeper in a distillery, I wouldn’t have imagined it,” she said. “But family comes first for us and helping my son with his business would always have been part of the plan.”
“Mike and his cousin, Chris, grew up helping my husband make wine,” she said. “There’s a lot of chemistry involved in it.”
Mike’s cousin, Chris Guillette, is the distiller for Sons of Liberty. Now they’re focusing on making their specialty known.
“Our sign says ‘Distilled from a dark, flavorful beer,’ ” said Mike Reppucci. As the company grows, Sons of Liberty intends to bump out some ingrained ideas about whiskey.
“Our first whiskey that we brewed was called Uprising, when we launched in December 2011,” Reppucci said.
“There are seasonal beers, so why not seasonal whiskeys?” he said. “We did a pumpkin-spice whiskey in fall and winter 2012 and we sold out of it. We’re doing our summer release in 2013 using two types of hops that add a lemon-citrus flavor.”
Sons of Liberty isn’t allowed to sell bottles from the distillery location, but has tours and tastings twice a week. The distillery sells through its 350 accounts in Rhode Island that include liquor stores, bars and restaurants.
“We mostly have customers where people want to go in and have a cocktail before dinner,” he said. “We don’t plan to expand much right now. We want to win our hometown first.” •COMPANY PROFILE
Sons of Liberty Spirits Co.
OWNERS: Michael Reppucci
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Distillery
LOCATION: 1425 Kingstown Road, South Kingstown, Peacedale Mill complex
EMPLOYEES: 6 (4 full time)
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2011
ANNUAL SALES: WND

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