With Roots Dating Back to Prohibition, New Distillery in Parkesburg Shortens Timeline from Cask to Flask

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two men wearing hats
Image via Bill Rettew, Daily Local News.
Chris Demars and his son, Alexander.

Spring House Spirits, a new distillery just south of Parkesburg, runs its entire operation — including milling, mashing, fermenting, distilling, and aging — on its 100-acre farm known as Chestnut. The distillery is also using a novel idea to speed production without diminishing flavor. Bill Rettew of the Daily Local News uncapped the details.

The micro-distillery produces about 300 bottles per month. Distiller Chris Demars credits the farm’s many natural springs for the high quality of the brand’s liquors.

Making spirits is in Demars’s blood. Both of his grandmothers ran stills during Prohibition. When the 21st Amendment legalized alcohol once again in 1933, they continued on, this time with the blessing of the law.

Demars has devised a way to speed production without affecting taste. By reducing the size of the whiskey barrels, the whiskey only needs one-fourth as long to age. As a result, Spring House can bottle its whiskey within six months, rather than the more-common two years.

The whiskey is produced in an old milk house and aged in oak casks.

“The oak gives the complexity to create those flavors and to balance and produce a full flavor whiskey that’s a pure pleasure to drink,” said Demars.

The distillery is a family affair, as Demars’s son, Alexander, serves as head distiller.

Read more about Spring House Spirits in the Daily Local News.

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