Today, May 4, was thoroughly enjoyable.  First of all, I was able to take the day off of work and spend it with my wife; we had some fun around the house and even got a couple of things accomplished.  The second reason was our trip to Kingman's Industrial Park.  Why would our visit to the industrial park be of interest?  Well, there's now a distillery in Kingman and it's located at 4875 Olympic Way - in the park. 

Micro-distilleries are popping up all over the country, apparently.  I'd heard about plans for one in Kingman last year and then kind of lost track of it.  The Kingman Daily Miner ran an article on it again just recently (read more here) so it seemed time to go check out Desert Diamond Distillery.  It's a noticeable read building on Olympic.  As we drove up we noticed a handwritten note on the door.  It was a phone number to call for tours and tastings.  I thought that perhaps D3 wasn't open yet.  However, as I walked up to the door to better read the sign (and with hopes that maybe somebody inside would see me and have pity on a homebrewer), John Patt opened the door.  I introduced myself as a homebrewer and told him I just wanted to stop by and check the place out.

He was gracious enough to give me a tour.  He'd just finished up with a batch and the smell of molasses filled the building.  He showed me first the brewhouse and copperplated still.  It was sparkling.  I'm just a plain old brewer and don't know a great deal about distilling and so he explained it to me as best he could.  After that, he took me over to see a few Jack Daniel's bourbon barrels he's planning to age his rum in.  He's going to leave some in the barrels for at least two years before trying them out.  Sounds like an open invitation to come back. 

Patt was good enough to also give me a taste of his rum and vodka.  I'm not a big rum fan, but have to admit his molasses based spirit has a good, sweet finish that lingers just enough.  However, I was more impressed with the vodka.  It's also based on molasses and is much less harsh than I expected.  It's got a sweet character, too, and decent body.  Very good drinks and I plan on returning to Desert Diamond Distillery.

His bar is very open, clean and inviting.  I encourage anyone who reads this to go visit the distillery.  He's still in the process of working on distribution, so his sales are done on site.  Go visit and support your local distillery!