Smugglers' Notch Distillery
Since launching their Double Gold Award-Winning Vodka back in 2010, Smugglers' Notch Distillery (SND) has grown organically and gone on to craft multiple gold and silver medal award-winning bourbons, gins, rum, rye, flavored vodka, Double Gold Winning Vermont Maple Cream Liqueur, and most recently, Maple Gin and Vermont Bourbon Maple Cream Liqueur.
SND's backstory is a fun one. In 2006 Ron Elliot, a retired business executive, teamed up with his son Jeremy Elliot, a research chemist in the pharmaceutical industry, to follow their collective passion to establish a distillery in the Vermont mountainside. As serendipity would have it, Jeremy’s pharmaceutical firm wanted to send him overseas, but Jeremy had other ideas. He wanted to stay in Vermont where he had lived since graduating from the University of Vermont.
In searching for ways to stay in Vermont, Jeremy took some time off to learn about distilling and develop a formula for creating a smooth and flavorful vodka, a tricky task. His professed goal: to make the world’s best vodka! During the quest for investors, father and son decided to keep the company solely a family partnership and set to work on developing a brand, an operational plan and site, and applying for all of the federal and state permitting required.
To their delight, within the first 9 months of the release in 2010, the vodka had won the highest awards that can be won in the spirits industry: A Gold medal from the Beverage Testing Institute; awarded 95 points by Wine Enthusiast which earned it the title of #1 domestic vodka; and a Double Gold medal in the World Spirits Competition in San Francisco.
Today SND has four Vermont tasting rooms including one in Burlington, Stowe/Waterbury, Manchester, and at the flagship store in the 10-acre distillery facility in Jeffersonville. There visitors can learn about the story and process of this father/son dream come true.
