Balcones Inaugurates New Distillery

By Richard Thomas

Balcones opened their new $14.5 million Waco, Texas distillery last week to local fanfare, in an event that drew out Waco’s mayor and several city council members. The new facility is in the four-story Texas Fireproof Storage building located on Waco’s 11th Street.

The new distillery is noteworthy for its Scottish, Forsyth’s-made pot stills, received in October 2015. Balcones barreled the first new make from those stills in February, so the distillery has been operational for several weeks now. The grand opening now throws the doors open to members of the public.

“We make the whiskey, we blend the whiskey, but it’s the people that make it happen,” Bellinger said. “We also have great support from the city and the county and our investors. We’re kind of like a perfect storm right now.”

Balcones old facility on 17th Street will continue to operate as a more specialized, smaller scale distillery. The arrangement is reminiscent of Corsair Distillery’s growth, which didn’t close smaller, older plants upon opening a new one and now has three distilleries in operation.