Obbink Distilling Holding Grand Opening June 1st in St. Joseph

(KNSI) – This week marks the grand opening of a new distillery with an out-of-this-world background.

Obbink Distilling in St. Joseph is launching its hyper-aged whiskey and other spirits into orbit on Thursday, June 1st, at 5:00 p.m. In 2008, master distiller and co-founder Gregg Obbink turned his love of whiskey into a home distillery. The former satellite engineer for NASA’s Earth and Space Sciences Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico created a proprietary process that accelerates the maturation time process for whiskey, shortening it from years to days.

He spent more than a decade perfecting his process, turning out a batch of whiskey in 15 to 30 days with the characteristics of being aged for eight to ten years. The spirits’ names are taken from the solar system with titles such as Forté, Lunar Vodka, Jupiter Gin, and Alexis.

Chief Marketing Officer Sean Dalton told KNSI News it’s a brewery vibe in a distillery setting. “We’ve got the tap room that people can sit and have a nice cocktail. You can have a neat whiskey that we have on tap. We have many options as well. It’s going to be a fun experience for people to be a part of the process or just sit back and have a nice cocktail.”

Dalton told KNSI News that they could launch new whiskeys with different flavor profiles every month with the quick aging process. “The goal is to have new whiskies brought to our distillery for folks to try and give their feedback. And we also have incredible mixologists that we’ve hired to build awesome craft cocktails.”

There will be over 20 spirits to test on a rotating, limited basis.

The plan is to operate on a “test it, bottle it, brand it, distribute it” model. They hope to have their products on liquor stores shelves in the future.

Obbink is joined by co-founders Adam Weber, Lukas Inveiss, and Ian Scherber. They all graduated from St. John’s University, which was why they decided to open in St. Joseph.

Get more information on Obbink Distillery by clicking here.

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