D.C.'s latest distillery is just about here. Cotton & Reed is ready to serve D.C. its own brand of rum when it opens Nov. 12.
The project from Jordan Cotton and Reed Walker opens at Union Market at 1330 5th St. NE. Designers at CORE did their best to work with the quirks of the building, rather than around them, when putting together the layout. It was inspired by two main ideas: the dilapidated factories of a park in Germany, Duisburg-Nord Landschaftspark, and the photography of German husband and wife duo Bernd & Hilla Becher. But despite the industrial touches, there are also softer influences, including plenty of greenery and herbs throughout the space.
Visitors will be greeted with the distillery's bar in the front (with drinks from bartender Lukas Smith), with a 17-foot, 500-gallon still reaching upwards in the back of the building. There's plenty of sunlight, and the bar top has designs from science texbooks accenting it. A table was even fashioned from a dismantled 1930s freight elevator. The space is 3,300 square feet in total.
The distillery opens next week with a spiced rum and a white rum, with more spirits to come. The project is more than three years in the making for the two friends who met as NASA engineers.
