Success Stories

Independent Spirits Distillery is a family owned and operated craft distillery in Gloucester County, New Jersey. We began operations in 2015 after two years of development. Our involvement with the SBDC began in the very beginning of the development process. We received help with completing our business plan and then took that business plan to an SBDC meet and greet with SBA Lenders where we found the financing we needed to get started. Working with the SBDC helped us to overcome the
biggest obstacle to starting a business- securing financing.

Since those early days, the Distillery has steadily grown a solid reputation for our line of true craft Spirits. We survived the Covid pandemic by switching our production from Spirit to Sanitizer which we provided to community members, businesses like Amazon and UPS as well as FEMA, local hospitals and police departments, and the Emergency Service organizations serving Gloucester and Salem Counties.

We have faced many challenges and continue to exist under the weight of heavy regulations and all the interest rate increases put forth by the Federal Reserve, but the Spirits continue to flow and each guest who visits our Tasting Room on the weekends helps to spread the word. We still specialize in creating truly crafted Spirits from locally sourced grains and our sales are slowly but surely growing each year. I have managed to achieve a comfortable life/work balance. Best of all, my two sons often work with me and both of them have learned how to distill. My daughter also helps when she isn’t busy with my grandson. I feel like the future for my business looks bright. It is a lot of work, but it is definitely worth it to watch my business grow, and my family join me in running it. – Kerry Breen, Owner