Black Button Distilling gears up for opening of its new home 

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Rochester’s first distillery since Prohibition is now poised to become the largest bourbon producer in New York, as owner Jason Barrett and team prepare for the Saturday opening of Black Button Distilling’s new 28,000-square-foot facility on University Avenue.

Black Button opened in 2013, in a building on Railroad Street attached to Rohrbach Brewing Company. At its peak, the Railroad Street location could put out 1,200 barrels, or about 63,600 gallons, of spirits every year. Barrett estimated that the distillery should be able to produce 14,000 barrels of liquor when the new facility is operating at full capacity.

“This is the culmination of thousands and thousands of decisions and hours of work,” Barrett said. “I’d like to say it was the finish line, but I really think it’s the starting line as we start the next chapter of what Black Button is capable of.”

To put the scale of the new distillery into perspective, its tasting room alone is about the same size as the former location’s entire bar, merch area, and production space combined.

Barrett was joined on Tuesday morning by a slew of dignitaries, including Mayor Malik Evans and County Executive Adam Bello, to celebrate the launch of the distillery’s new home. While the facility has hosted several small groups in recent weeks, its official opening to the public is planned for noon Saturday.

“Jason and his team are the textbook definition of stick-to-itiveness, they’re the textbook definition of hanging on and not letting go,” Evans said. “Because there are so many businesses that are no longer with us because of the scourge of the pandemic that we had. They just didn’t last, they weren’t able to survive... But not only did this business survive the pandemic, but they’re thriving.”

Black Button’s story is one that seems unlikely, at least on paper. At the age of 24, Barrett was able to secure a loan which would fund a business Rochester hadn’t seen in nearly a century. Since then, the distillery has been able to spread to some 15 states and internationally in Japan. In 2019, Victor-based Constellation Brands acquired a minority stake in the distillery.

Black Button touts itself as a true New York distillery, with upwards of 90 percent of its ingredients sourced from the state, inlcuding a significant portion of ingredients like juniper for gin and oak for barrels from its own farm in Bristol. The ceiling of the new taproom is adorned with bisected bourbon barrel segments arranged in a rolling wave pattern, and even the oak support beams in the facility were made from trees grown on the farm.
Barrett said the new distillery will support 87 jobs when it reaches its full operating capacity. He expects the production space to be up and running by mid-August, and for the distillery to be fully moved out of the Railroad Street location by September. That location is now closed to the public.

“You know, this is just another example of the power of small business growing from one entrepreneur to all the employees you have here,” Bello said. “The real message today, and the real reason I want to congratulate Jason, is because to do something like this took guts. Jason had to go out on his own, had to start this business, and took a huge risk.”

Since its inception, Black Button has offered a wide variety of spirits, from its Baileys-esque Bourbon Cream, to lilac gin and high-end, eight-year aged bourbon.

When he was asked what he would run through the new stills first, Barrett responded without pause.

“Bourbon,” he said.

Gino Fanelli is a CITY/WXXI reporter. He can be reached at  [email protected].