Trophy Brewing joins the liquor game. Here’s a first look at Young Hearts Distilling
A skinny century-old building on Wilmington Street is now the first distillery in downtown Raleigh. The first legal distillery, anyway.
The owners of Trophy Brewing have launched Young Hearts Distilling in the same space where they started with Busy Bee Cafe more than a decade ago.
“We always dreamed of having a distillery,” owner Chris Powers said. “We thought it would be cool to be part of something that was newly happening in North Carolina.”
First downtown distillery
Young Hearts Distilling is opening at 225 Wilmington Street in Raleigh in the renovated building that was Busy Bee before Trophy Brewing ever existed.
“That’s the place where we started and began to dream about what we wanted to be,” Powers said. “It’s a 120-year-old building; we want to bring some young energy to this old building.”
Like Trophy, Young Hearts is owned by Powers, Woody Lockwood, Les Stewart and David Meeker. Powers said a distillery was always part of the brewery plan, but the timing was never certain. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced a pause on much of downtown Raleigh, Powers said it seemed to be a natural break to create something new.
“The pandemic forced us to step back and think about what we wanted to spend our time on and what made us happiest,” Powers said. “We decided this was our time. There wasn’t going to be another opportunity to take a breath and renovate the building.”
In turning Trophy Tap + Table into Young Hearts, the owners rebuilt downstairs and upstairs bars, knocked down a wall so guests didn’t have to go outside to find the stairs, added wooden booths and put a covering over one of downtown Raleigh’s most popular rooftops. There will be barrels by a back wall filled with liquors made just a few feet away. Powers said diners and drinkers will smell the aging spirits in the air.
“It’s the most grown-up of our spaces, partially because we have grown up ourselves, our tastes have changed, what we want to share has changed,” Powers said. “I want people to have the experience of being in a distillery, of being in a space that’s aging spirits and watch that process through a storefront glass window.”
The spirits
Since it opened in 2013, Trophy has been one of the leaders in the Triangle’s craft beer scene. Now it has two brewing locations, two restaurants and a distillery.
Like craft beer, North Carolina is seeing a surge in craft distilleries. What was once just a handful of distilleries across the state has grown into a booming industry, with nearly 70 distilleries in North Carolina, including at least 15 in the Triangle.
With Young Hearts, the Trophy ownership group becomes the second Triangle brewery to add spirits, following Raleigh’s Lonerider.
The 300 liter hybrid column pot still shines by the front door at Young Hearts. For now the still doesn’t have a name, but it will soon, beverage director and distiller Mena Killough said.
“I’m still getting to know her and see who she wants to be,” Kilough said. “She’s strong and mighty and she is tiny.”
Young Hearts’ roster of spirits will include a year-round gin, plus seasonal releases with a variety of botanicals based on the time of year. There will also be a vodka, a blue agave spirit, multiple herbal and botanical amari and eventually absinthe and whiskey.
Killough came to distilling through herbal medicine and nearly a decade working with herbs and botanicals. Previously she was the head distiller at Unknown Brewing’s Wood & Grain Project in Charlotte, first learning how to distill in the early days of the pandemic by making hand sanitizer.
“Spirits naturally do that as well, they take you out of heightened present moment and let those muscles go,” Killough said. “I became interested in combining the effects of both. It got me thinking about plants and botanicals mixed with spirits.”
Young Hearts will experiment with amaro and gin throughout the year, Powers and Killough said, exploring how herbal, floral, bitter and sweet flavors may play in cocktails. Currently Killough is extracting flavors from spruce tips meant for a gin release this winter.
“I want to see my limits, I want to see where I can push and pull botanical flavors,” Killough said. “Seasonality is really a popular thing, and we’ll be capturing the flavors of the season and express them in the bottles.”
The food menu
When Trophy Tap + Table closed last year during the pandemic, it also meant the end for one of Raleigh’s most beloved plates of loaded tater tots, a dish that started on the menu of Busy Bee Cafe and remained on Wilmington Street on and off for a decade.
Executive chef Alex Ricci returns to the Triangle from Las Vegas, having previously worked for Giorgios Bakatsias and Andrea Reusing.
The Young Hearts menu will feature a mix of small plates, salads and larger entrees. A few of the early dishes include a sweet potato pappardelle pasta with figs, watercress and caramelized buttermilk, a venison carpaccio and compressed watermelon infused with house-made spirits. Perhaps the next potato phenomenon on Wilmington Street is a Brunswick rillettes, where potatoes are fried into the shape of a cannoli shell and filled with a take on Brunswick stew. At soft openings, Ricci said it’s been the top seller.
“We wanted to take Brunswick stew and turn it into a form no one has seen before,” Ricci said.
Downtown energy
Young Hearts opens in a downtown Raleigh still in the midst of a pandemic, with restaurants still using outdoor spaces as dining rooms and offices largely empty as workers remain at home.
Powers said there’s a desire to see Raleigh return to its pre-pandemic self once COVID case counts stabilize.
“I think there’s a renewed energy, there’s just this energy downtown that’s about to bubble and boil over,” Powers said. “People want to come back downtown and feel a sense of normal. We hope to be part of that for folks.”
Young Hearts is now at the start of its soft opening phase. The copper still continues to make spirits, and Powers said bottles should be available for sale by early September. Powers said he believes fans of Trophy will recognize the same passion for craft beer in the newly released spirits.
“People know we take it seriously and put our heart and soul into a project,” Powers said. “Hopefully they’ve come to trust our palate and trust we’re going to push things forward.”
This story was originally published August 14, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
