Features Distillery Local Artisan Roxbury Cocktails Spirits Mine Hill Distillery in Roxbury: Spirits with a Sense of Past and Place (via CT Magazine) Connecticut Magazine December 05, 2019 Photo: Winter Caplanson c/o Connecticut Magazine Time is an ingredient,” Elliott Davis says as he takes me on a tour of Mine Hill Distillery in Roxbury. The venture capitalist turned sheep farmer turned distillery owner is speaking literally. He’s referring to the way the rye, bourbon and other styles of whiskey produced at his distillery will be flavored by the passage of time as they sit aging for months and years in barrels. But he could also be speaking figuratively. Each drop of liquid produced at his distillery, which opened this fall, is inspired by the past.Roxbury used to be one of Connecticut’s last remaining “dry towns” where the sale of alcohol was prohibited. That changed in 2011 when a resolution allowed for the sale of alcohol. (Neighboring Bridgewater was the state’s last dry town and didn’t end its prohibition until 2014.) A few years later, Davis, who lives in the area, began to look for a property to open a distillery in Litchfield County. He was approached by Roxbury’s first selectman, Barbara Henry, who urged him to look at the Roxbury Station property. Davis was looking for a farm, but that changed when he saw this property. It was almost four acres with four buildings including an 1872 train station and 1860 cigar factory. Most of the buildings were in terrible shape, but the site called to Davis. “It really was a piece of history,” he says.Read the complete article at Connecticut Magazine.
