Mine Hill Distillery in Roxbury: Spirits Distilled + Bottled in Connecticut and a Cocktail Program Coming Soon

For over two centuries, Roxbury’s Mine Hill Preserve has been a prosperous site for granite, hence the name of the distillery.

Driving on Connecticut State Route 67 towards Roxbury, you’ll notice a handful of historic buildings that date back to the 1800s. What used to be a train station, cigar factory, lumber shed, general store, and a post office is now a distillery. And unless you’re up in that area, Mine Hill Distillery may have popped up on your radar in this very moment as you’re reading this.

Operated by a small team of six that includes owner/general manager Ron Neugold, head distiller Chris Byles, assistant distiller Audra Sanchez, and three salesmen in Ken Asplund, Austin Weyant and Gary Crone, Mine Hill actually started, at least as an idea, and the purchase of the five buildings, back in 2015.

(Left to right) Ron Neugold, Chris Byles, and Audra Sanchez.

Byles is a well traveled distiller who’s been all over, including Montana and the Midwest. He’s been with Mine Hill Distillery almost since its inception.

As for Neugold, you’ve likely heard that name before as his nephew Clark and Clark’s wife, Kate, own restaurants Marygold’s On Main and Good Old Days Pizzeria & Cocktail Den in Newtown and The Foundry in Sandy Hook. Neugold was in the beverage business for Pepsi for about 20 years, five of those for Taco Bell since Pepsi at one point owned restaurants, He learned about the alcohol business when he worked for Guinness Bass Import Company, which he says helped significantly for getting Mine Hill up and running.

Mine Hill’s bourbon is aged five years right across the way in their own barrel house.

Tastings, like this one, are $5, but they’ll waive the fee if you decide to purchase a bottle.

“Elliot Davis is the founder,” Neugold explains. “He was an investment banker who moved back here and was looking to do something else. Some of us threw our money in a coffee can and the rest is history. After we bought the buildings, the restoration and the equipment installation took two and a half years. In 2018, we started producing gin and vodka, then amaro in 2019, all while we were putting bourbon and rye away.”

In the present, the now renovated cigar factory is where the distilling is done and it’s also where there’s a small tasting area and store, and an upstairs where you can still see some of the century old equipment that was used when that building was used for aging and grading Connecticut cigar wrappers. Some of the windows, floorboards, beams, and artifacts from yesteryear are all original at Mine Hill.

This former train station will soon be used for something else. Keep reading.

But they didn’t keep every structure.

“The train station—you could tell kids had been in there partying; the roof was caving in—we rebuilt it to the original plans,” Neugold says. “It’s on the National Register of Historic Places. Our rickhouse was used for lumber drying. And across the street was an old general store and post office that we bought and sold at cost to the Roxbury Land Trust who previously didn’t have a spot.”

On their distilling floor, and in the barrel house, is where things are happening. Mine Hill has already received accolades for their gin. Back in 2020, their vapor-infused eight botanical gin won national double gold by The Fifty Best.

But it’s their tagline, “Still made in Connecticut,” that Mine Hill preaches. And what that means is they’re distilling in Connecticut, bottling in Connecticut, using primarily Connecticut grown ingredients, and partnering with Connecticut businesses with similar sustainable values.

Waiting is the name of the game for certain spirits. Neugold jokes, albeit seriously, “Someone asked me once if you can make a lot of money in this business and I said, ‘Well, sure, if you’re patient!”

“Everything is produced on site,” Neugold says. “Flip other bottles over and you’ll see it’s sometimes distilled or bottled in different places. We produce everything here.”

Mine Hill’s amaro, akin to a sweet vermouth, is also very Connecticut. It begins with Vidal blanc grapes from and pressed by Hopkins Vineyard in nearby Warren, who then ages it in a cask for six months, resulting in a raw, unfiltered wine that comes in at 9% ABV. Neugold reveals that the vineyard ships it to them, then it goes into a tank with 16 botanicals to age for another six months and finished with local maple syrup before it’s bottled.

There’s some scenery out here, too.

And if you’re wondering where they get the water for their spirits, it’s not from the river, but from a well that produces 0.6 gallons/minute. For a run, Mine Hill uses 1950 gallons, so it takes about two and a half days for that water to accumulate in the aquifer. The river water does not get to the well.

Additionally, ingredients for Mine Hill’s Vodka (raw wheat and wheat malt), Rye (rye and malt), and Bourbon (corn, rye, distiller’s malt) all comes from Thrall Family Malt in Windsor, the oldest continuing family farm in America that predates the Revolutionary War, that’s currently run by the family’s 14th generation. 

If you’re wondering how you can try some of Mine Hill’s goods, there are a few ways you can do so. The distillery self distributes. They went from having their products in 250 outlets, but in the present, that number is at over 500 and growing.

(Photo credit: Mine Hill Distillery)

Of the amaro that’s in this Manhattan, Neugold says of Mine Hill’s maple syrup sweetened product that it plays well in a Manhattan or a Negroni. “People are even drinking it as an apertif,” he says. “It even make an amazing glaze for pork or salmon when you reduce it in a saucepan. It’s like our version of a sweet vermouth. We usually do two ounces (of a base spirit) to a half ounce of the amaro because it’s sweeter, but you can add from there if you want your drink sweeter.”

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If he was forced to pick one, Neugold’s favorite spirit of Mine Hill’s is the gin.

“I have three kids and you love your kids equally, but I like gin and tonics in the summer; two ounces of gin, topped off with Fever Tree, throw some Rose’s Lime Juice in there because it’s concentrated,” he says. I’m a fan of martinis. Our gin has great botanical and with a blue cheese stuffed olive, it’s the mouthfeel of the dry alcohol, then a firm piece of the olive fruit, then the blue cheese. I like all of our products though.”

You can also drop by the distillery for a tasting. Neugold mentioned that while they’re open seven days from noon until 5 p.m., they best time for a weekday walk in sampling is in the afternoon, as they’re usually firing up their equipment to distill spirits or they’re busy bottling. On weekends when they aren’t distilling, any time is the best time between those hours. And if you’re a group larger than six, shoot Mine Hill an email so they’re ready to host you.

Coming very soon for Mine Hill Distillery will be an expanded experience. Currently, they cannot sell you a cocktail, or more than a 50 ml tasting, but that’s set to change.

“We got our permit to serve drinks and light food in the old train station building,” Neugold says. “We’re hopeful to be open soon with a bar and cocktails. It was always frustrating because people would say about a spirit, that, ‘that’s great, I wonder what it tastes like in a …’ But I couldn’t make them something. I maybe could have made them a mini Manhattan! We’ve also got these Adirondack chairs and a large fire pit outside by the waterfall. I want to have live bands and I’m hoping to set up a movie screen.”

5 Mine Hill Road, Roxbury
860.210.1872, minehilldistillery.com