Mazza Chautauqua Cellars, a New York-based winery and distillery along with other Mazza family ventures like Mazza Vineyards and South Shore Wine, is to produce craft whiskey at its upcoming 5,500ft² distillery in Westfield, New York.
The distillery has been producing variety of spirits such as fruit brandies, cocktail liqueurs and Italian grappas since 2006 for private labels as well as their own labels - Mazza Vineyards Winery and Mazza Chautauqua Cellars. The company now plans to add a craft whiskey to portfolio.
Being built by Mazza family's private company Robert Mazza of Pennsylvania, the distillery will produce the whiskey from locally grown rye, corn and other grains, reported goerie.com.
The distillery already made trial batches of the whiskey in March 2012 that are currently aging and expects to sell them in the summer 2013.
Mazza Chautauqua Cellars operations general manager Mario Mazza told the website that they are currently distilling trail batches with different recipes and barrel sizes to find out the perfect recipe.
"There will be a higher percentage of rye in our craft whiskey. We're not cutting corners on our product," he added.
The new distillery is expected to commence production in March or April 2013 with first whiskey tasting and sales expected to occur in June 2013.
