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Cheers to West Michigan Distilleries!

Michigan is quickly becoming renowned for accomplished craft distillers. Whiskey, vodka, gin, and more are being created using local ingredients. These distilleries have received high honors for their craft and are local, West Michigan favorites for their attention to detail, uniqueness, and overall quality.

Journeyman Distillery in Three Oaks offers handcrafted artisan spirits utilizing all locally sourced Midwest organic grains and unfiltered/untreated water from an underground aquifer. Stop by on January 16th for E.K. Warren Day to celebrate the man behind the historic featherbone building the distillery calls home. Stop by the Staymaker Restaurant and enjoy a specially priced E.K. Warren cocktail and Journeyman will make a donation to The Region of Three Oaks Museum.

Greater Lansing is home to over 25 craft breweries, distilleries, and wineries. Take a tour, do some tasting, and even take a cocktail class as you explore locations all around the area. Hop on Greater Lansing’s Makers and Shakers Trail to experience the best of locally sourced and made beer, wine, and spirits. 

Located in walkable downtown Saugatuck, the New Holland Spirits tasting room is an ideal destination for happy hour cocktails or an after-dinner nightcap. They offer tasting flights and cocktails made with award-winning spirits, along with light snacks and a retail area with bottles to go. 

Holland is home to a variety of distilleries, offering handcrafted spirits, as well as unique dining experiences. Coppercraft Distillery creates premium, small batch cocktails made from local ingredients; their extensive dining menu will certainly enhance your visit. Be sure to pick up a Handcrafted Passport featuring 17 local breweries, wineries, distilleries, and cideries. Collect 10 or more stamps and receive a custom bar blade that is stamped with “Made in Holland” on it. The passport doesn’t expire which allows you to sip, enjoy, and collect at your pace. Passports available 7 days a week at the Holland Visitors Bureau office at 78 East 8th St in Downtown Holland.

Grand Rapids’ Long Road Distillers uses locally sourced ingredients to create spirits of uncompromising quality. Cocktails, small-bites, and bottles to-go are available in their Grand Rapids location as well as the Boyne City tasting room. Take a tour for a behind-the-scenes look at the distilling process and get to know what is in your glass from a distilling expert. 

Eastern Kille crafts authentic spirits in the heart of Grand Rapids using premium ingredients and water from the Great Lakes. Visit their tasting room to sample their whiskey, gin, or coffee liqueur. A seasonally revolving menu of cocktails are available to highlight the spirits made onsite. 

Find craft cocktails, special events, and innovative spirits when you Visit Muskegon

Most likely you’ve heard about the wineries and breweries in Traverse City. But have you heard about the distilled spirits? The northern climate that grapes and hops thrive in is also well-suited for wheat, corn, and barley: the basic ingredients for whiskey and vodka. Add in the cherries, and other fruits grown up north, and now you have a variety of spirits available. From the light fruit brandies produced by local wineries to the small-batch vodkas, whiskeys, and gins made by the area’s distilleries, there’s a handful of options to raise a glass. 

Traverse City Whiskey Co. has been using the same hand-crafted distilling recipe for three generations. Visit the speak-easy style Stillhouse Cocktail Bar in downtown Traverse City for their signature whiskey or limited releases only found at the Stillhouse, or take a tour of the production facility to learn more about their generations-old process. 

Michigan’s oldest award-winning “Grain to Bottle” Craft Distillery is Grand Traverse Distillery. Using local agriculture to make world-class spirits, Grand Traverse Distillery distills all of their vodkas, whiskies, gin, and rum in a 1100 liter Holstein twin column copper reflux pot still. Stop by the distillery for tours, cocktails, and tastings or visit the tasting rooms in Mackinaw City and Kalamazoo.

Get a “Latitude Adjustment” with a visit to Northern Latitudes Distillery in Lake Leelanau. From their signature Ice Dunes Vodka, made from 100% Michigan grains, to a luscious limoncello aptly named Limoncello di Leelanau, they are always experimenting to find the next addition to their line of spirits. The tasting room is open seven days a week. Tastings are free and you can buy your favorite selection by the bottle and/or have it mixed into an incredible cocktail and enjoy it at the bar or with a group of friends at one of the eclectic tables.

A trip to Northern Michigan’s Shanty Creek Resort is not complete without a stop in beautiful Downtown Bellaire. Known best for Short’s Brewing Company, Bellaire is also now home to Mammoth Distilling Tasting Room. Together with friends from Bee Well Meadery, local wineries, and Short’s, downtown Bellaire has become a refreshing destination to enjoy hand-crafted cocktails, beer, mead, cider, and wine.

Come out to the Iron Fish Distillery tasting room in Thompsonville to try the first farm distilled whiskeys: Rye Whiskey and Straight Bourbon Whiskey. They’re currently only available for purchase in the Thompsonville tasting room, but will be for sale throughout Michigan in early 2020. The whiskeys are dedicated to the Arctic Grayling Research Initiative working to reintroduce the Arctic Grayling fish to Michigan rivers.

Learn more about the Michigan small batch spirit producers and distilleries with the Michigan Craft Distillers Association