Photo by Eliesa Johnson
distillery wall with quote
Image by The Restaurant Project Copyright 2021
The new Wisconsin outpost of Tattersall Distilling opens in River Falls next week, and media types were given a chance to walk around it last week. Here is a six-pack of things we saw.
1. It's huge, really. Some 75,000 square feet that used to be a Shopko is now being used for production of booze. It's right off of the Hwy 35/65 exit, you can't miss it. No, there's no Arby's on site.
2. There's a full bar and a full restaurant, being operated by Morrissey Hospitality. Chef Johnathan Newman was brought on to create a menu of approachable American tavern food that works with spirits. Think: trout dip with artisan flatbreads, pork belly candied with a Tattersall Whiskey glaze, filet with a Tattersall Orange Crema butter sauce, and pancetta & blackberry neapolitan-style pizza. There's also a huge patio attached with an outdoor bar, fire pits, and lawn games to come.
concert area
3. When they talked about event space, they meant it. A very large ballroom area is already being shopped for weddings, but more importantly, the outdoor private patio area with a stage is ready to go. Concerts and events will see up to 1,000 in this outdoor space, with two dedicated outdoor bars.
4. Just past the merch (where you can buy actual life sized bottles of booze), there's a tasting bar and a lab bar. You can belly up to the tasting bar and sample the wares before you buy. And the lab bar is where they hope to invite chefs and other industry professionals to collaborate on special drinks and host classes.
solar array and woods
5. There's a lot of green tech involved. All their greens are being grown with special in-house lighted grow pods from a nearby company. They bought a special water filtration system that will recycle water used in distilling, cleaning it and sending it back into production. Spent grains are sent to a farmer to feed the cattle which are then bought for the restaurant. And the roof is covered with the largest solar array on any craft distillery in the country, "producing a yearly average of 477,900 kWh of electricity, this is equivalent to 373 tons of CO2 offset— the same amount sequestered by 415 acres of forest."
6. The White Tail Ridge mountain bike trail abuts the property and the neighborhood behind them approved an extension of the trail to lead right to the distillery. The Kinney river, which is popular for kayaking and fishing, is just up the block. With all of that and the outdoor patio situation, summer should cook. There's a hotel just across the parking lot, fyi.
They are opening softly on Nov. 30, with the grand opening to follow Dec 1. Dinner rezzies are live!
