Craft spirits have potential to be next trend, distillery owner tells chamber

Alabama has seen a boom in craft breweries in recent years, and Jimmy Sharp, owner of John Emerald Distilling Company, thinks that craft spirits have the potential to be the next boom. That boom might be a little slower, Sharp told the South Shelby Chamber of Commerce during its July 13 luncheon, because most distilleries will have some focus on aged spirits — whiskey and rum — which need time to age before they hit the market.

“I think that’s one of the reasons you’re seeing craft breweries opening around the state fairly quickly. Distilleries are probably going to follow a similar trend, but they’re going to be slower to grow,” Sharp said.

Sharp and his father, John Sharp, opened John Emerald Distillery in Opelika in 2015, making it the first legally distilled whiskey in the state since Prohibition. Since they started to sell their spirits — which include single-malt whiskey, gin, vodka and two kinds of rum — they have been blessed, Sharp said.

“Our whiskey hit the market and the first batch sold out in 45 minutes, so that was both really exciting and also terrifying because we realized we really missed the mark on how much production [we needed] for our demand.”

Each spirit has won at least one award, Sharp said, and the distillery is working to grow its age — the number of barrels aging — and its style.

Another change on the horizon is they plan to start bottling a muscadine brandy.

“As far as I can tell, we’re making the best muscadine brandy on the planet because we’re apparently making the only muscadine brandy,” Sharp said. “So we’ve got the market cornered on that one.”

Opelika is also growing, Sharp said, and they are glad to be part of that process.

“It’s been fun being a part of that, and I feel like our distillery has been a big draw for tourism,” he said. “At this point, I feel that distilleries are a bigger draw for tourism than breweries because there aren’t many of them.”

The distillery gives about 100 tours per weekend, and about half are for people who come from more than 50 miles away, Sharp said. A recent change in state laws has also benefitted the distillery, Sharp said, because it allowed them to sell spirits for off-premises consumption. This means if someone comes in for a tour, samples a spirit and likes it, they can purchase a bottle and take it home.

The distillery has a bar where visitors can have cocktails or sample a flight of the spirits. They currently employ nine people, including Sharp and his dad, but added: “we can’t do much more without another body."

And while they are producing about 150-180 bottles of whiskey a week, Sharp said that is about one-third capacity for their space. For capacity for producing clear spirits, “the sky is the limit,” he said, because those don’t require time to age.

“If we outgrow our current space and current equipment, we’ll be driving Cadillac’s every day … so we’ve got a lot of growth to go,” Sharp said.

Even though John Emerald Distilling Company is not located in Shelby County, South Shelby Chamber of Commerce Executive Director April Stone said she invited Sharp because she believes a distillery or craft brewery would be a good economic development opportunity for the county.

For more information about John Emerald Distilling Company, go to johnemeralddistilling.com.