Two New Distilleries Open Their Doors in Pawtucket

The tasting room at Working Man Distillers and Dark Outpost Distilling in Pawtucket. (Photo by Lauren Clem)

Eight years ago, as the state’s craft beer industry began to heat up, Pawtucket gained a reputation as a hub for the industry, with a handful of breweries scattered across its former textile mills.

Today, the city is repeating that history with the craft spirits scene. Last month, Dark Outpost Distilling and Working Man Distillers opened their doors in a former industrial space on Carpenter Street, marking the third and fourth distilleries in this city of 75,000.

The two distilleries operate as an alternating proprietorship, with Dark Outpost maintaining the lease on a unit previously home to a wine distributor and Working Man leasing space as a tenant, with both distilleries sharing a taproom and production space. While Working Man focuses on the tasting room experience and manages the tasting room now open at 5 Carpenter St., Dark Outpost will focus on distribution and is still ramping up to its full production capacity.

“We will have a smaller tasting room experience with a very different style in the upper area of the distillery, but the main focus for us in the first three to four years is heavy production,” says Jeremy White, an owner of Dark Outpost alongside his wife, Rebecca DiMuro White.

Jeremy and Rebecca are both United States Army veterans who decided to open a distillery after Jeremy left the military three years ago (Rebecca currently serves as a JAG officer — a military lawyer — for the Rhode Island Army National Guard). The two pursued training through Moonshine University in Kentucky and the American Distilling Institute, and Jeremy received a master’s degree in International Beverage Management from Johnson and Wales. Their friends, Alex and Lani Bozkurt — another Army couple — are partners in the business.

While searching for a location in Rebecca’s home state of Rhode Island, the two met Kelly and John Lendall, owners of Working Man Distillers, and decided to team up. The partnership made sense — both distilleries focus on whiskey production, and Kelly is also an Army veteran with a working-class ethos that lends the business its name. The Lendalls opened their distillery in North Attleborough in 2020 and built up a devoted following before deciding they’d outgrown the space and closing the location last July.

“Christmas 2017, I bought him a home distilling kit and held it hostage until he proposed to me. Once I did that, he opened it and turned my kitchen into a science lab,” Kelly says about their start in the craft spirits industry.

The new space offers 12,000 square feet, including a 5,000-square-foot production line. Alternating proprietorships allow businesses to pool resources by sharing a production space. In Rhode Island, the model is already at play in Westerly, where Hive Beer operates out of space owned by Grey Sail Brewing. (Buttonwoods Brewery and Origin Beer Project were previously in an alternating proprietorship when both operated in Cranston.)

Kelly and John Lendall, Rebecca DiMuro White and Jeremy White, Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien, and Pawtucket Interim Human Resources Director William Keegan in the tasting room.

Jeremy says they plan to distill a traditional-style bourbon — a nod to his Southern training — and expect to begin large-scale production in August. In the meantime, they’re distilling on a smaller, experimental scale, with products from both businesses available in the front tasting room.

“It’s not an environment where people are chugging beers. You don’t see people coming in here getting tipsy,” Kelly says.

In addition to whiskey, the tasting room offers vodka, gin, rum, agave and absinthe from Working Man Distillers and has eight taps for cocktails on draft. Old-fashioneds and Manhattans are usually available, with seasonal beverages, including apple cider and spiked iced tea, rotating in. Kelly says she and John drew inspiration from their thrift store travels in crafting a tasting room with a rustic feel, featuring mismatched seating and creative furniture. A former combat sports photographer, she outfitted one corner with memorabilia from her time on the fight circuit. Another corner pays tribute to local police and fire departments, with firemen’s helmets displayed along the wall.

“It’s very big, which is a dream come true,” she says about the new space.

Both couples shared their excitement at being in Pawtucket, a city in the midst of several major redevelopment projects. A short distance away is the Pawtucket/Central Falls Transit Center, and on the other side of that is Rhode Island Spirits. With White Dog Distilling just a short drive away, Rebecca expressed interest in creating a Pawtucket distillery crawl.

Both couples also expressed gratitude for the support from Rhode Island’s other distilleries. Kelly says Rhode Island Spirits owners Cathy Plourde and Kara Larson have long served as mentors, and O’Brien and Brough distillery in Bristol agreed to store Working Man’s barrels of aging whiskey during the move. Rebecca says that sense of collaboration isn’t typical everywhere.

“That is an amazing aspect of this industry I did not expect. I’ve been practicing law for twenty years,” she says.

The Working Man Distillers tasting room is open Wednesday through Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 3 to 9 p.m. For now, Dark Outpost products are also available in the tasting room, with larger distribution and a second tasting room to come. The distilleries are located at 5 Carpenter St. in Pawtucket.

A seating nook in the tasting room. (Photo by Lauren Clem)

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