ZEBULON — A dream almost four years in the making came to fruition over the weekend in Zebulon.
Olde Raleigh Distillery began in January 2017 when Brandon McCraney started looking for a location to start a bourbon distillery. As the name suggests, he started looking in Raleigh, but the cost of real estate and the city’s zoning made it difficult to find what McCraney wanted.
“I was being pushed into an industrial park where I wouldn’t have any foot traffic. That didn’t match with the vision we have for the brand and distillery. I was very specific on what I wanted,” McCraney said.
McCraney started looking in other towns in Wake County before stumbling upon a site on Arendell Avenue in September 2019.
“We’re on the main street of downtown. We get a ton of traffic,” he said. “Our distillery is in the middle of a community. We have houses all around us.”
Ingredients and flavors
McCraney has a passion for bourbon, which is a type of American whiskey made primarily of corn. He went into the distillery business hoping to create something different from other distilleries by focusing on the art of distillation and the art of blending, he said.
Most large whiskey distillers use a mass-produced corn to make sure their alcohol tastes the same regardless of where you purchase it.
McCraney said using mass-produced corn wasn’t a negative thing, but it opens a door for Olde Raleigh. His bourbon will be made with heirloom corn varieties, which McCraney said are “a bit more flavorful” than mass-produced corn.
“Olde Raleigh Distillery can say, ‘Hey, we’ve lost some great grains and some great heirloom corn varieties that historically make great bourbon,’ so that’s what we want to reintroduce back to the market.”
He hopes to eventually reach out to the local farming community to ask them to grow the heirloom grains that will make up the brand. Right now, he’s focused on research and development.
His other great love is blending. Part of McCraney’s title is master blender.
Blending isn’t prominent in the U.S. due to laws, which can be different from state to state, and because distilleries historically haven’t gotten along, he said. However, McCraney is looking forward to including a bourbon blend in his signature line.
“Our bourbon blend will consist of three distinct bourbons with different mash bills from both sides of the Mississippi. We’re using four total grains,” he said. “By the time I’m blending them, which will be happening this month, they will have been aged across five different states.”
The blend will be available in 1500-bottle small batches with each batch having a different flavor profile depending on his blending technique. He also plans to do limited release cask-finish bourbons as well.
Downtown revitalization
It was important to him to be in an area with foot traffic because McCraney wants to create a unique experience that customers couldn’t get at other distilleries, he said.
“In this industry, the prominent big names typically are found in farmland, not near a city in the middle of nowhere, so you have to take a road trip or a vacation or you go on the weekends. We are right in the middle of downtown Zebulon,” he said.
McCraney said he was also excited about the size of the building. The 10,000-square-foot former department store allows Olde Raleigh to have a tasting room and a 200-person event space, in addition to the production and aging areas.
He was also excited to help revitalize Zebulon’s downtown. McCraney is involved in the town’s economic development as president of the Zebulon Chamber of Commerce.
However, the process of renovating a 50-year-old department store hasn’t always been easy.
“I spent the first four months by myself in here just tearing apart the building,” McCraney said. “We had a lot of not-so-pleasant surprises, like sewer pipes that weren’t there.”
However, he also had a few good surprises, such as finding beautiful brickwork hidden under old plaster. The now-exposed brick serves as a focal point in the event space.
McCraney found 15-foot pine beams used to hang the drop ceiling. A local woodworker turned those beams into the bar and tables. The ceiling also turned out to go up 20 feet, allowing Olde Raleigh to create an exposed high ceiling.
Despite issues, McCraney first expected to open the distillery in April or May 2020. Permitting issues slowed him down, though.
“But that’s separate from the town,” he said. “The town of Zebulon has been phenomenal from ushering us in to asking if we needed additional help to providing resources to help us navigate the county’s approval process.”
Doors are open
Olde Raleigh Distillery launched on Friday, Jan. 22.
“It’s been four years to the month from when we first sought out to open a distillery,” McCraney said. “It’s been a crazy year and a half, but we have our handprints on every square inch of this building. I’m so happy the doors are open.”
Olde Raleigh Distillery is open Tuesday-Friday, 4-9:30 p.m., Saturday, noon-9:30 p.m. and Sunday, noon – 9 p.m.
