Atlanta-based ASW Distillery, creator of award-winning craft whiskies, is opening a third location at the Battery Atlanta on Saturday, March 27. The 4,914 square-foot space features a large tasting room with a cocktail bar, a private event space, and a small distillery for the production of two new ASW spirits: Bustletown Vodka and Winterville Gin.
Produced using a small Vendome copper pot/column hybrid still—ideal for creating a variety of small batch, high quality spirits—Bustletown is seven-times distilled for purity and clarity and retails for $22. With notes of juniper berry, citrus, and spices like coriander, Winterville will launch later this spring. Both spirits will be available for purchase at the Battery location as well as in bottle shops throughout Georgia.
While most new liquor brands start by producing clear spirits like vodka and gin because they don’t require aging and can be sold immediately, ASW Distillery took a different approach: a silver whiskey.
Co-founder and CEO Jim Chasteen calls the brand’s namesake unaged whiskey, which can be sipped straight or mixed in a cocktail as a substitute for vodka or rum, a “conversation starter” that helped the brand stand out in a saturated spirits market.
“Because the product was so unusual, we were really able to educate our customers about whiskey and our brand while we worked on producing aged spirits,” he explains.
Nearly a decade later, the ASW Distillery portfolio now includes rye, bourbon, and double and single malt whiskies, plus a flagship distillery on Armour Drive and a tasting room and barrel house, the ASW Exchange, which opened in West End in 2019.
Later that year, the Atlanta Braves approached the ASW Distillery team about opening an outpost at the Battery. Chasteen says the location is ideal because of its proximity to customers in the northern suburbs, foot traffic from visitors as well as neighborhood residents, and space for distilling and bottling the already-in-the-works Bustletown Vodka and Winterville Gin.
The Battery location includes a large tasting room and bar, where customers can sample spirits and cocktails like the Peachtree (Bustletown vodka, peach nectar, lime, and hibiscus bitters), and tour the distillery between 12 and 9 p.m. daily and to 10 p.m. on Braves home game days.
While reservations for indoor, socially distanced tables at the Battery opening are sold out, drinks will be available to go for sipping outside on the patio or in the Battery’s open container district. Masks are required when approaching the bar, and the room will be operating at a reduced capacity.
Eventually, the location’s small event space will host private tastings, cocktail classes, bartender education seminars, and other special events.