Headframe Lays Claim to the West

We're not yet certain how we feel about a micro going macro, but we have to grant John and Courtney one thing: they freakin' love Butte. And even though a minor macro setting up shop in the West means less market share for the smalls, its still a step toward breaking the whiskey monopoly held by Kentucky, Canada, and Scotland.

Here is their press release:

Largest Beverage Distillery West of the Mississippi Announced

BUTTE, Mont (August 14, 2014)—Montana’s Entrepreneurs of the Year 2013, and owners of Headframe Spirits, John and Courtney McKee opened Headframe Spirits in 2012, currently they operate two distilleries in Butte, MT, and are now announcing plans to open a third facility in Butte with the capacity to rival that of large distilleries in Kentucky and Indiana.

Last summer, Headframe Spirits entered into a year long project with Butte Silver Bow Community Development, the Community Development Block Program, and SMA Architects to evaluate three potential sites in Butte suitable for our needs of producing a full size barrel of whiskey every seven minutes. Although a value added agricultural manufacturing facility, the goal of site selection included the need to create ties between agriculture, history, manufacturing, and tourism.

With preliminary engineering and architectural work complete and a suitable site selected, Headframe intends to enter into negotiations with property owners - Butte Silver Bow County and Atlantic Richfield Company with the goal to take over 20 acres of a former industrial site, The Kelley Mine Yard, to redevelop it into the largest distillery west of the Mississippi.

This project incorporates Headframe Spirits' proprietary continuous flow distillation technology to produce beverage alcohol both for Headframe Spirits' own brands and for bulk sale into the beverage alcohol industry as well.

All attempts will be made to maintain the history of the site, with production and restaurant space located in the historic hoist house. Barrel storage, packaging, shipping and receiving will be located in the 54,000 square feet Kelley garage building.

We also envision this site built out to act as an eastern anchor to Historic Uptown Butte, America, with a strong emphasis on tourism, outdoor event space, and economic development for our place in the world. Onsite overnight bungalows and the restaurant were incorporated into the master plan in order to promote a more fully integrated experience onsite and in the Uptown.

Headframe Spirits anticipates that this project will create approximately 50 new long-term jobs through this venture and ownership will be maintained in Butte.

For additional information and architect renderings, please visit http://bit.ly/1sVGsK2.