One Shot Distillery & Brewery

The first inklings of an idea about One Shot Distillery happened on the Range after a Combat Pistol Course. When the students and I were picking up brass and putting up gear, one of the guys asked what I was going to do when I retired. The Army offered me the opportunity to earn my MBA and the entrepreneurship course was fresh on my mind. I had the idea to create a spirit specially designed for toasting comrades both past and present. One of the guys in the course, a fireman, spoke up and said, “I happen to know where there’s a whole commercial distillery worth of equipment packed up in and storage you could probably get for a good deal.” I wasn’t that serious yet but told him I would think about it and eventually we went out to look at the equipment and met a gentleman by the name of Jim Sargent. He had started the first legal distillery in the Hawaiian Islands post-prohibition and was very successful at making Maui brand rums. We eventually came to an agreement on the equipment and with the promise of Jim’s tutelage bought his distillery gear.