All whiskey / whisky welcome

We are fortunate enough to live 20 minutes away from https://oldnickwhiskey.com/ which is a local NC distillery established in 1786. They have a rich, interesting family history and the distillery is entirely owned and operated by the family. (They were actually featured on the show Moonshiners and we attended the filming of the final episode.) So a couple years ago we built a 2800 square food building as a shipping and distribution company for our business. We work from home so we wanted to build a dual use work/play facility. The second story was designed from the ground up with a billiard room, cigar lounge and future office/exercise room. There are five mini-split HVAC units with a commercial smoke eater installed in the ceiling of the cigar room. Every room is isolated, there is no ductwork and no evidence of anyone having smoked in the lounge due to the oversized smoke filter system. Anyway...on to the bourbon.

I had this crazy idea to purchase a half barrel of clear whiskey and age it in a new oak barrel in our cigar room. We would let it age a year+ and then start to sample the bourbon before bottling. Supposedly the aging process is faster in a smaller barrel. Over the past year the barrel has been on the upper outside deck, protected from the elements but able to experience the wide fluctuations in temperature which is beneficial. The folks at Old Nick's were able to even get our company logo burned on the cap of the 25 gallon barrel. The barrel has now aged 15 months and we are about to sample some as soon as we get a free evening. I'm really proud of how the cigar lounge turned out, complete with digital in-wall humidor, cool lighting and in-ceiling killer audio with free standing sub.

Keeping with a bourbon theme on the billiard room wall I mounted two barrel end caps I found on Ebay. I cut the ends off a salvaged barrel, reassembled with the Makers Mark and Woodford heads, then screwed them to the wall. When the rock went up it really made them pop, especially with the locally made "speakeasy" door crafted from alderwood.

We also have 12" shuffleboard and two beers on tap in the game room, plus some pins. This loft has been a source of endless entertainment over the past year when a lot of bars were initially closed. The funny thing is I haven't smoked a cigar in months and I've been off bourbon for about a month. Started running 4 miles a day a couple months back and after a rough break-in period to adjust I haven't had the urge to smoke or drink much, lol.

Anyhow, I think this is my first pinside post so I figured I would share our unique loft. My wife has a small wine center which is her room, but that's another post altogether.