Old Fourth Distillery sets up shop on Edgewood Avenue

By Annie Kinnett Nichols

Like many great ideas, Old Fourth Distillery started out as a simple question posed at a party: Why can’t we make our own liquor?

That’s what brothers Jeff and Craig Moore thought when they opened up a little clubhouse in East Atlanta. Locally-brewed beer? No problem. Legally distilled liquor? Not in Georgia boys – no way, no how. The Moores – along with partners Justin Gray, Andy Duvall and Gabe Pilato – decided they weren’t going to take no for answer.

Everyone told them that making liquor was illegal in Georgia, so they decided to hire lawyers and find out exactly what could stop them. Law firm Sard & Leff went to work and soon the first legally operating still, or distillery, was born.

Located at 487 Edgewood Ave. in the booming Old Fourth Ward district, the partners set up shop. You can stop by anytime to visit, but the doors won’t officially open until late August.

The guys run an IT business across the street, which gave them funding to create their dream. A dream that wraps up all their passions in one: something uniquely theirs, creating from scratch, using local only, zero imprint on the environment, marketing, design, architecture, adventure, building relationships with tons of people and making something they can hang their hat on.

They brought in a world famous German manufacturer, Carl, the oldest continuous manufacture of stills on the planet. Gorgeous copper and shiny metal, the still arrived in a box that looked like Ikea had gone mad. Thankfully, an expert came with the box, installed the still in 24 hours and promptly flew back to Germany.

Now the boys are to putting it to work, with plans to have vodka in one year, gin in two and bourbon in 10. The bourbon will sit in barrels for a decade before they sell it. No hurry here.

All the different liquors will be sugarcane-based, meaning no potatoes and no wheat. Sugarcane is the only starter that has 0 percent waste. 95 percent sugarcane will turn into alcohol and the other 5 percent will be water. You can actually drive your car with sugarcane alcohol. Conversely, it takes 40 pounds of potatoes to make a bottle of vodka – that’s a lot of potato parts leftover.

The founders also want everything to be local, local, local. Case in point, a kuduz vodka is in the works. “We have tons of kudzu in this state and we want to see if we can make it drinkable, Moore said.” They’re not even sure it will taste good, but they don’t care. That’s half the fun.

Just to be clear, Old Fourth Distillery is not a bar, since that’s still illegal in Georgia. The still’s creations will be sold through United Distributors, which recently took them on as a client. However, there will be free tours and tastings coming very soon.

Keep up with the still at old4th.com and at facebook.com/old4thdistillery.