We were lucky to catch up with Michael Skubic recently and have shared our conversation below.

Michael, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

Ideally Old Harbor Distilling will be remembered as one of California’s best craft distilleries. We launched back in 2013 when there were only a handful of craft distilleries in San Diego. Today there are over 25! I remember when I started Mike Hess Brewing there were 28 breweries in San Diego. Now it is closer to 200. I imagine the same thing will be happening in the spirit industry as more and more consumers become aware of the quality of products we are putting out. If we come to be seen as a Stone, Ballast Point, Karl Strauss, Pizza Port, etc… in the craft spirit scene I will be happy.

Michael, 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 opened up Hess Brewing in 2010 with Mike Hess. I had been his intern at Raymond James Financial during college. After I graduated we decided to go ahead and open the first “nano-brewery” in San Diego. We were making 50 gallons of beer at a time. I did that for about 5 years, during which I rediscovered my love for whiskey, rum and gin. I went on a few fact finding missions to Oregon, Washington, Colorado and San Francisco/Alameda to see how different making spirits was from beer. Turns out not too much besides the actual distillation process. Whisky is what beer wants to be when it grows up! I started making spirits on a homemade still in my backyard. There I came up with the recipes for San Miguel Southwestern Gin & Ampersand Coffee Liqueur. I found a warehouse in East Village San Diego in 2013 and a year and a half later we opened up on September 28, 2014 (the same day Cabrillo landed on San Diego shores in 1542.)

We think our spirits are very special:
Our 1542 Gin is made using 100% native to California botanicals. Blake, our master distiller, hand picks everyone that goes into the spirit. It could have been made by Cabrillo himself in 1542! Also our Ampersand Cold Pressed Coffee Liqueur is sweetened to the lowest level legally allowed; about 1 gram per shot. It uses our sugar cane juice rum as the base, so it has a natural sweetness from that, and our expertly roasted beans from Coffee & Tea Collective makes an easy sipping spirit.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

We had to make a big shift from 75% on-premise pre-pandemic to about 75% off-premise during the lockdown. One benefit is that people started to make cocktails at home. I believe that online sales of cocktail shakers went up something around 500% in 2020. At that time we also decided to go national as losing most of our on-premise sales wasn’t going to allow us to stay open. We partnered with DrinkBIBO and went nationwide. We are now in 13 states. It’s been a learning experience, but it is great to have an Old Harbor cocktail in Miami and Chicago and Denver and Austin. Very exciting.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

In the beer industry you really have to keep yeast clean and cool. The distilling industry is not like that at all. I remember watching a distiller use his bare hands to activate some yeast, and that boggled my mind having come from the extremely sanitary world of craft beer to the much more carefree attitude of distilling. As distillers we know that we can cut out the bad parts of a fermentation during the distillation process. This is know as the heads, hearts and tails. We throw away the heads and tails, keeping only the “heart” of the spirit.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.oldharbordistilling.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/old_Harbor
• Facebook: facebook.com/OldHarborDistilling
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/old-harbor-distilling-company
• Twitter: twitter.com/old_harbor
• Other: our speakeasy’s website is www.propshopsd.com

Image Credits
Survey Kolivayko & Caava Design.