Distillery opening in Coshocton County
Rob Ashcraft and Larry Turner are the owners of Killbuck Creek Distillery, LLC which is located in the former Randles Cheese building on U.S. 36. Josie Sellers | Beacon
WARSAW – Common interests created a friendship between Rob Ashcraft and Larry Turner and now it’s leading to a new product being produced in Coshocton County.
Ashcraft and Turner are co-owners of Killbuck Creek Distillery, LLC which will produce bourbon, rum, whiskey, vodka and flavored moonshines.
“Our first three on the shelf will be a white whiskey, a vodka and a silver rum,” Ashcraft said.
The business partners connected on Facebook after the passing of a mutual friend, Brian Jennings in 2014, but it wasn’t until 2016 that they actually met each other.
“I went to a five day course at Moonshine University and posted two pictures from there on Facebook,” Ashcraft said.
After seeing those pictures Ashcraft and Turner ended up meeting in Utica and chatting for three hours and now they are business partners.
“Rob had a solid business plan and I was looking for an escape,” Turner said.
Killbuck Creek Distillery, LLC is a way for Turner, a retired Columbus Police Officer, to remember a fallen officer Steve Smith who died after being shot in the head.
“We are making a bourbon called 1386, which was his badge number,” Turner said.
They plan to make liquors to honor the late Tom Cottrell, a Danville officer who was killed in the line of duty, the police chief in Kirkersville who also was killed on the job, plus an honor guard whiskey. They also plan to give back to others once the business is up and running.
“Between the two of us we’ve had a lot of experience that have to do with a higher power so we want to give back to others from this,” Ashcraft said.
They are hoping to start distributing their products in state liquor stores by September.
“Hopefully we have trouble keeping up with demand,” Turner said.
However, they will not be able to sell bottles or samples at their location unless voters in Bethlehem Township agree to that in the November election.
“So far we’ve gotten a positive response from people,” Turner said. “We’ve only had three people tell us no when we were going around getting signatures to get on the ballot.”
He can’t wait to start memorializing Smith with the 1386 Bourbon and Ashcraft is looking forward to putting Killbuck Creek Distillery on the map.
“There is only one Coshocton,” Ashcraft said. “There isn’t another one in the whole United States and we want to be as unique as the county.”
Killbuck Creek Distillery is online at www.killbuckcreek.com and on Facebook. It is located at 42879 US 36.
Category: Business
