As a kid, I was always torn between a future as a chef or an engineer. I had serious thoughts of culinary school but was also very into math and science. In the end, chemical engineering became my career and cooking became one of many hobbies. Somewhere at the intersection of my love for food, drinking and engineering is where this all started.
I spent a few summers in college doing undergrad research and since I was a poor college kid, I opted out of cable, internet and A/C to save a few bucks. I should also mention that this was in South, so opting out of A/C was not my most sound decision. Without the entertainment basics, I looked for other ways to fill my days and started brewing. That led to studying distilling. I wish could tell you about experimenting with different moonshines, whiskeys and rums but home distilling is highly illegal so, clearly, I did what any responsible college student would do and vigilantly obeyed the law…for the purposes of thisblog.
Fast forward to 2013. I’m married, working at my second job out of college and my wife and I are sitting at Heist talking about how we love the brewery boom happening in Charlotte. I tell her about my summers of brewing and “studying” distilling (remember…highly illegal) and a couple of weeks later, the idea takes shape. For me, a distillery is the perfect blend of science, engineering, and culinary arts. It’s what I was meant to do.
Getting Doc Porter’s from dream to reality is where my engineering side jumped in. I researched, laid out a business plan and determined if we could make this happen. We finagled the numbers, figured out how much we must sell to stay afloat, scaled the equipment and decided to take the leap. Right in the middle of the leap, we had our first child, a little girl named Quinn. New baby, new business…yeah…things are hectic but life is good.
So here we are. Over 2 years later, and we’re about to open and share our craft with the world, or at least Charlotte. It’s been a roller coaster ride, but we can’t wait to taste that first drop off the still.