Today we’d like to introduce you to Troy Hughes.
Hi Troy, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
The story starts with a 110-year-old bottle that was found in my house in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, DC. The still intact label said “Mt. Pleasant Club Whiskey” and embossed on the back was the name and address of the proprietor (William D. Barry) and liquor store (Reliable Family Liquor Store) where it was bought in 1911. During the long COVID winter, I came up with a plan to produce a t-shirt with the original label design. It was a hit in the neighborhood, and my friend and neighbor, John Loughner introduced the crazy idea to revive the brand in January 2021.
Our company, Reboot Beverages LLC was born in January 2021 and we have now produced several whiskeys named after streets in Mt. Pleasant (19th Street Batch, Kilbourne Place Rye, and Brown Street Bourbon). All of our bottles celebrate both the history and current residents of each street. The plan is to do a whiskey (or agave spirit, see below) for each of the 21 streets in Mt. Pleasant. We commission local artists to design the artwork for each of our labels.
Speaking of history, as a revived pre-Prohibition brand, I thought it important to do as much research as possible into the origins of the bottle, and I found so much great information, that it became a book! Whiskey Makers in Washington, D.C.: A Pre-Prohibition History by Troy Hughes | The History Press Books (arcadiapublishing.com)
The original whiskey in the bottle was a rectified rye whiskey from Baltimore (like pretty much every rye whiskey sold by pre-prohibition whiskey merchants in DC) – you can read about it in the chapter, “Why Rye?” As a non-distilling producer, that brings very limited releases to the public – we love to try new and interesting expressions – in Fall, we’ll be releasing three new whiskeys: an American Single Malt, that will be in honor of Harvard Street, Ingleside Terrace, which will be a Pennsylvania Rye, and finally, the Rosemount Avenue Rum finished Rye (we took one barrel of our Maryland style Kilbourne Place Rye and put it in a Cotton & Reed (local DC Rum Distillery) rum barrel for over a year!
And coming in the Spring of 2024, we’ll be releasing an Agave Spirit (think tequila) that has been maturing in our previous bourbon barrels (they will be Anejo by the time they are released). It would be cool to work with Baltimore’s Sagamore Spirits to recreate a rectified whiskey – see the book for a few recipes!)
We also have a vodka – called Pukfuten (I think the name tells you how we feel about Vladimir. It’s an American-made vodka from corn that has been 6 times distilled), and ALL of our profits go to a Ukrainian relief organization (United Help Ukraine). John is half-Ukrainian, and when the war started, he wanted to use our new-found status in the liquor industry to do something to help
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road has not been smooth or straightforward. This entire venture is a side gig for both of us and finding the time and energy to be a meaningful player is hard on us – we both have young kids.
The distillers in DC that we’ve worked with thus far (District Made and Bo & Ivy) have been wonderful to work with.
Getting our products into liquor stores and bars is easy once they taste it, but finding the time to get them to taste is hard – again, we have day jobs.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.reboot-bev.com/
- Instagram: @MtPleasantClubWhiskey, @rebootbeverages, and @pukfuten
