We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Barry Butler. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Barry below.

Barry, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

A lot of people thought we were crazy. Starting a distillery at the age of 59, when most people are starting to think about retiring was a foreign concept to most people. But for my wife, Lisa, and I it was a natural choice. I have been starting and selling bio-pharmaceutical companies for the past 22 years, so I am not a stranger to taking risks and finding success. But making liquor (especially good liquor) is a different story.

So, we set about to make our dream a reality. In 2018, we founded Tarpon Springs Distillery. One advantage we had was our experience working with regulatory agencies in the pharmaceutical business. It turns out that the TTB (the alcohol regulatory agency) and the FDA have a lot in common. We were able to get our distillery plans and licenses in place pretty quickly. Building out the physical distillery came with a lot of unexpected issues, but we ultimately prevailed and made our first batch of commercial liquor in December, 2019.

Success came quickly as our first batch of liquor, Papou’s Ouzo, won the Specialty Class at the ADI Judging of Craft Spirits in 2020. We were able to navigate the COVID crisis and still remain in business. After almost 4 years of operation, we have launched 12 different spirits, including 3 different whiskies, and won numerous significant medals in international competitions. This year, we will host almost 30,000 visitors. So, overall, the project has been a success.

I like to tell people the story of Colonel Sanders, who started KFC when he was 62 years old. By the time he died, there were over 6,000 KFC stores. I don’t know if we will achieve that level of success, but we will have fun trying.

Barry, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am the Master Distiller at Tarpon Springs Distillery, in Tarpon Springs, FL. My wife and I co-own the business. The business is a grain to glass distillery located in a historic town on the West coast of Florida. We distill a variety of award winning craft spirits. We also sell craft cocktails in our tasting room and in our music venue, The Rye Bar.

While our technical business is distilling, our real product is fun. We try to make the experience of visiting Tarpon Springs Distillery a joy. In 2023, our business was Best Distillery, Best Live Music Bar, Best Bloody Mary Bar and was a finalist for Best Cocktail Bar in the Tampa Bay Times Best of the Best Reader’s Choice Awards. The Tampa Bay area has hundreds of places to enjoy a drink, so winning all those categories was quite an honor.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

A lot of craft distillers have a similar story to mine. I was a hobbyist distiller (this is not technically legal) in my backyard. I had a 5 gallon still and got to the point where the liquor I was making was better than what I could buy at the liquor store. So, with the encouragement of my family and friends, I decided to open a distillery.

My first mission was to figure out how to move from a 5 gallon pot still on a turkey fryer to a 500 gallon steam operated still. I got a great deal of help along the way. I found a distillery in Tennessee that agreed to let me do an internship the summer before we opened. I learned a lot there, but was also able to contract with their head distiller,Josh, to work with me as a consultant during the build out. Making a 100X jump in the recipe size was surprisingly easier than I thought, and the commercial products that we initially produced were very similar to the products I had made in the backyard.

I personally led the distilling for the first two years, but was eventually able to convince Josh to move to Florida and take over day to day distilling. While I was making good liquor and winning a lot of awards, Josh was able to streamline the processes, reducing time and cost. There is no substitute for putting the right people in the right jobs.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met my co-founder/business partner in college at the University of Alabama. I was dating her roommate at the time. She stole my heart and we have been together ever since. As you can now guess, my business partner is also my wife of 43 years. We have been working together much longer than we have had the distillery. We actually started working together full time in 2001. I had been working as a senior executive at a major pharmaceutical company. The company wanted to relocate us from Florida to the frozen north. I had been thinking of starting a pharmaceutical company for awhile. This was the perfect reason to do it.

I founded my first pharmaceutical company in May of 2001. My wife, Lisa, quit her job as a speech pathologist in the local school system and enrolled in training to become a regulatory writer for pharmaceuticals. The company was sold just 1 year later. We next started a contract research organization and began managing research for other pharmaceutical companies. A couple of years later, we started another pharma company. I was the CEO and Lisa managed all the regulatory filings with the FDA. We were able to get two products approved and sold that company in 2010. After that, we formed a new company that developed products using a virtual model. We still have that company today and hope to have a couple of additional drug approvals in the next two years.

Founding the distillery together was a whole different adventure. There, I was in charge of making the liquor and LIsa was responsible for the retail aspect of the business. Neither of us knew what we were doing, but by making key hires and studying retail business a lot, we are making it work.

A lot of people find it hard to work with their spouse, but in our case, it has been a very successful partnership, and marriage.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tarponspringsdistillery.net
• Instagram: @tarponspringsdistillery
• Facebook: tarponspringsdistilleryfl