Black Button Distilling closes tasting room
New York’s Black Button Distilling has shut its tasting room, two years after opening an expanded experience.
On 3 July, Black Button Distilling founder Jason Barrett posted a video to Facebook announcing that after 13 years, the brand would close its tasting room. Based in Rochester, New York, Black Button was founded in 2012 and moved into a new space in July 2023.
The move allowed Black Button to expand production from four barrels a day to 40 and entertain more guests, but with increased production came increased costs.
“You used to be able to run the tasting room with one person on a Thursday night, now it’s really four, so even though we actually saw more revenue at our new place, the costs had also risen by such a factor that it really just didn’t make sense,” Barrett said. “We tried paring down the menu. We tried many things, many of which worked. We had a book club that would sell out every month.”
Black Button isn’t folding completely, with Barrett saying they will retrench and focus on co-packing and other contract production needs. He says that all four bottling lines are running at full capacity at the moment, with the need for a second shift in some cases.
“It’s about volume. It’s about controlling your costs,” Barrett noted. “The future for us is in co-packing and keeping our brand alive through liquor stores and festivals.
“We won’t be aggressively trying to grow that brand, but rather hanging on, finding pockets where we can be successful. How do you define success? For some people, it’s 50 states of distribution. For some people, it’s gold medals. For me, it’s paying my bills and being there at the end of the year with a few more barrels in the warehouse.”
Before closing, the Black Button tasting room held two last call days on Friday 11 July and Saturday 12 July, with Barrett calling the last day a blowout, conducting more business in a day than they do in a typical month.
“We were selling the chairs and the art off the walls and everything,” he recalled. “We had people come from out of state. We had one couple that drove from North Carolina to Rochester to come for our last day.”
Barrett describes the decision as brutal and says that while there is sadness, he is proud of all he accomplished and of the Black Button staff that stayed committed up to and through the last days.
“The tasting room is closed, that is done, but we still think we’ve got a pretty good shot at making it as a company, just as a different operation,” he said. “We’re just retrenching for the long haul. I’m just incredibly proud of our team, incredibly proud of what we’ve done.”
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