Scranton, Wilkes-Barre Area Distillery Looking for New Partner

[nick3757]

Hello everyone,

My name is Nick Rosati and I own the distillery Miner's Mill (http://www.minersmill.com). We are located in Wilkes Barre, PA and you can see our location here: Google Maps.

If you are interested in talking more about this please send me a message here or email Nick@minersmill.com and we can schedule a call.

I'm currently the only person working on the project and own everything outright. I'm trying to find a partner to help with getting the facilities ready, raising funding, and sharing the workload when production starts. There are too many details to list here, so please feel free to contact me and we can talk more in-depth.

For some background, I purchased the property at a tax sale in 2015 which has 6 buildings on just under 7 acres. Here is a bird's eye view of the property:

The property was a grain mill from 1795 through the 1960s when it was shut down and turned into a facility to bag and process coal for use as filter media. There's been a cooperage shop here, a blacksmith shop, and tons and tons of corn has flowed through this facility. I've made a ton of progress to date, including removing 160 cubic yards of junk left by the previous owners, fixing windows, gutting buildings, and overall maintenance. 

I have a federal DSP, a Pennsylvania limited distillery and importer license, bond, and a federal importer license is pending. I also have nearly all the equipment for 2 50 gallon mash steam cookers, 2 50 gallon steam hybrid stills, 1 15 gallon electric keg still, 300,000 BTU natural gas boiler, and other equipment. My day job is an engineer with a custom automation firm so I have access to many other things as well.

Below is a picture of the building that is registered as the DSP. It is a 3 story triangular shaped building with about 2,500 square feet on each level. It is constructed of brick walls on the outside and heavy timbers inside.

The distillery building has a ton of great character that lends itself to being an amazing tasting room. There are markings on the walls from workers from over 100 years ago, vintage equipment, an elevator, and tons of great industrial vibes. Here are some pictures of the inside of the distillery building:

 

My goal is to start production in the above building and also house the tasting room and seating area in this building. Eventually, I would like to move production to the larger mill building, which is a 6 level all concrete building that was built in 1912. This building is shown below.

This building has a ton of history too, and can help with branding greatly. It was built in 1912 and was featured on the cover of American Miller when it was new. It was one of the most advanced grain mills of it's time and would be perfect for the large-scale growth I'm trying to achieve. Below is a postcard of when the building was new.

The immediate plans call for finalizing the branding, building all of the graphical material, launching a Kickstarter for an initial round of funding, then entertaining other funding options. I plan on using original Miner-Hillard graphics as a strong basis for the branding and artwork. Below is a sample of one of the items we found in the on-site time capsule from 1904.

Once we have some more secure funding, construction of the production and tasting room facilities can be finished and we can start making and serving product. 

If being part of this venture sounds interesting to you please message me or email me at Nick@minersmill.com and we can talk about this more in-depth.