OTR distillery, event space will bring vision to life

“Remember what you think when you first see this,” Michele Hobbs said, pausing, hand on a doorknob, an I-have-an-awesome-secret smile on her lips.

Opening the door at the back of the 1939 Over-the-Rhine Tudor house that is the headquarters for her Pet Wants business, she gets the wide-eyed reaction she has come to expect.

Calling the space a warehouse – which it is – is like calling a classic Mustang a car: It’s accurate, but boy, does it undersell what you’re about to see.

The building dates to 1899, with high ceilings and original wood. It’s large, big enough to accommodate about 400 people, Hobbs figures.

As soon as she saw it, she had a vision of what it could be: A band playing. Food trucks. People milling between indoor and outdoor spaces. A glass awning to protect the outdoor space from the ever-changing Cincinnati weather. A big screen showing everything from major sporting events to election night results. A shiny 250-gallon pot still, surrounded by glass, visible from indoors or out. People coming from the last streetcar stop, in front of Rhinegeist two and a half blocks away. More people coming from Central Parkway, using the Central Parkway Protected Bike Lanes, stowing their cycles on an art sculpture/bike rack out front.

She’s now working to realize that vision, to open Over-the-Rhine’s first distillery and event center that emphasizes live music and entertainment. Depending on funding, she hopes to see Knox Joseph Distillery (named for one of her two-year-old twin sons) and the OTR Stillhouse event center and bar, up and running as early as the first quarter of next year.

“It’s really going to be off the (expletive) hook,” she promised.

A million-dollar baby at a bargain price

It’s a bit of a fluke that Hobbs even got to this vision.

“People like me just don’t get these kinds of properties in Over-the-Rhine,” she said of the complex at 1820 Central Parkway. “The guys who get these kind of properties are the heavy-hitters” such as Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation or Towne Properties, she said.

But she did get it, in 2014. Combing through bankruptcy records, she saw that only one Hamilton County tax payment had been made in seven years, and there was a $43,000 lien on the property. For only $225,000, it was hers.

“This is a million-dollar property, easy, in Over-the-Rhine,” she said.

Hobbs is no stranger to unlikely wins.

“When I opened Pet Wants, it was in the middle of a recession, I didn’t have a brand name, I was broke, I’d lost my job,” she said.

That was five years ago. Fast forward to mid-June of this year, when she began franchising the business she runs with wife Amanda Broughton. They currently have local entrepreneurs preparing to open Pet Wants locations in Northern Kentucky, Mason and Dayton.

To ensure success in her new venture, Hobbs is bringing in equity partners with experience. They include Casey Gilmore and Debbie Branscum of Cincy Events Management, whose clients have included big local events such as Bunbury Music Festival and Cincinnati Food and Wine Classic.

Then there’s Tom Asquith, who was in product development at Brown-Forman distillery for eight years. A whiskey scientist, he’ll eventually be Knox Joseph’s master distiller. (Getting started, he’ll have help from consultant Larry Ebersold, the well-known former master distiller of what is now MGP distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana.)

“Tom is very particular,” Hobbs said. “You know the old adage, ‘measure twice, cut once? Tom will measure 10 times before he cuts.

“That kind of precision is going to impact the ramp up of our distillery and our spirits, but it’s also going to ramp up the quality of our spirits,” she added.

And it’s a good time to be in the distilled spirits business. In 2014, the industry grew by 2.2 percent in volume and 4 percent in revenue, according to data from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a national trade association.

The bar and event space will offer a testing ground for Knox Joseph’s spirits, which will debut there. (A tasting panel of people “who are intrinsic to the nightlife or the spirit and character of the community” will also help keep the spirits on track, Hobbs said.) First to the market will be Wyatt Jack gin, named for Hobbs’ other twin son. Whiskeys and maybe a limited-run vodka will follow, and, after at least two years of aging time, Knox Joseph bourbon.

Hobbs is a bourbon fan. Each year for her father’s birthday, she used to buy him a small bottle of Blanton’s that would last him all year. “When he died, I went out and bought a bottle of Blanton’s and toasted my dad,” she said.

The romance was born.

Embracing the past, and the future

The quality of the water used in the distillation process is vitally important to the quality of the end product. Hobbs’ water will be drawn from the aquifer below the building. She’s excited about the historical connection there. A Sanborn map in her office from 1891 shows Standard Ice Manufacturing on the site; the company made ice using the aquifer water.

“If you had a drink in a tavern or bar in Over-the-Rhine in 1891 – and there were a lot of them – the ice came from there,” she said. “If you had ice in a drink before Prohibition, it came from this well.”

At this stage, Hobbs and her partners are working on funding for what she expects will be a $5 million project.

“We aren’t doing a rebuild, we’re just re-imagining it,” she explained. “The money is going to go straight to features, like the glass awning.”

They hope to find one or two key investors, not 20 or 30. (“The distillery piece, making bourbon, is sexy,” Hobbs said, smiling. “In keeping the project in the $5 million range and having one or two investors keeps the sex appeal to a minimum.”)

She said the partners have vendors standing by to do the renovations.

Angela Sansalone, an architect with drawing dept., will design. (She was lead architect of the New Riff Distillery in Newport while with Glaserworks, Hobbs said.) Cincinnati Air Conditioning, which had offices in the on-site Tudor house from 1966-2007, will do the HVAC system.

That building, by the way, has its own interesting history. Built by William Miller & Sons Builders, it was a spec house where people could go to look at various windows, sconces, arches or types of ceilings.

Though her excitement about the project is palpable, Hobbs knows Pet Wants is her bread and butter and plans to keep that business her focus.

“Everyone wants to talk about the whiskey and how sexy it is, but Pet Wants pays the bills,” supporting her family and 11 people on her last payroll, she said.

Besides, money isn’t the goal here. Those equity partnerships? Hobbs gave them away. “We’re all in this to make this happen,” she said.

“It’s not about owning a distillery or getting rich. It’s about ‘this has to happen in Over-the-Rhine,’ ” she said. “I get the biggest smile on my face just thinking about this place opening.”