Adaptive reuse projects take some creativity. Retrofitting an existing warehouse into the first distillery in Austin in nearly a hundred years took collaboration, coordination, and, like distilling a fine whiskey, patience. To bring the Owner’s vision of bringing unique whiskey flavor, distilled from local ingredients and reflective of Austin’s Tex-Mex roots, the new distillery would require special equipment, upsized utilities, and a team to navigate code and life safety design requirements.

In collaboration with the owner, architect, and a whiskey production engineer, we established goals for a clean, modern look that showed off the industrial production of the distillery. The new tasting room has its own visual identity but connects to the production space with two windows into the distillery – one of which shows off the 50-foot tall centerpiece sill.

Working with local utility companies, our team upsized and designed utilities for whiskey production – which has higher demands for water and power than the existing warehouse was originally designed for. Designing to meet all fire and life safety code requirements related to distillery design required our team to work with a fire consultant and perform a preliminary plan review with the city early on in design.

FEATURES: 

• First whiskey distillery in Austin since Prohibition

• Production space, bottling/cask packaging space, tasting room, event space, outdoor patio

• Retrofit of existing warehouse space

• High efficiency VRF type HVAC in all conditioned spaces

• Water efficient plumbing fixtures