Seven Caves Spirits
Seven Cave Spirits owner and distiller Geoff Longenecker first began making liquor here in 2016, and approaches every distillation as an opportunity to explore different ingredients, methods, and possible outcomes. When the longtime attorney and homebrewer launched Seven Caves, he did so with a pantry of ingredients, different grains, sugars, and yeasts he might use to construct a unique base alcohol for each new batch. “I don’t make products in here,” Longenecker states, meaning flagship products. “I make batches.”
“We are a true Grain to Glass San Diego distillery,” according to the craft distiller's website, “which means every drop of alcohol that leaves our shop came to life there in the first place. We don't buy mass quantities of cheap neutral spirits from huge plants or source spirits made and aged by someone else, run it through our still (or not), slap our name on it and call it good. Every bottle that leaves our shop is handcrafted, hand lettered and hand numbered.”
Longenecker specializes in making unique rums, all barrel aged, and none are spiced. They’re made less to match anyone’s expectation of rum, and more to pursue what rum could taste like, outside of the world of mass production. “I’m not going to compete against Bacardi and Diplomático [rum brands], and their million dollar ad budgets,” Longenecker concedes, “but I can compete on flavor. And I try.”