Pinckney Bend Distilling Company - New Haven, Missouri
Pinckney Bend was a navigational hazard well-known to generations Missouri River boatmen. Located at mile marker 83 above St. Louis, it is the site of a once-thriving town long since disappeared, and a stretch of river where at least five 19th century steamboats were wrecked, including the famous side-wheeler Spread Eagle.
Today its namesake, the Pinckney Bend Distilling Company in New Haven, Missouri, celebrates the legend and lore of this vanished town. The river has changed course since those early days, but standing on the levee not far from the distillery’s front door and looking westward, you can almost see where the town of Pinckney once stood.
Daniel Boone, trying to escape the encroachment of civilization in Kentucky, pioneered this wild section of Missouri in 1799 and built a house not far from the river,. But his solitude was brief. In just five years ownership of this vast and largely unexplored wilderness passed from Spain, to France, to the newly established United States of America. In 1804 President Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on an expedition to take a look at what exactly he had bought with the Louisiana Purchase.
On the afternoon of September 20, 1806 Lewis and Clark, returning from their Voyage of Discovery, rowed past what would soon be named Pinckney Bend. The group overnighted just downriver at small French village near the mouth of St. John's Creek. Clark noted in his journal, “We purchased of a Citizen two gallons of Whiskey for our party for which we were obliged to give Eight dollars in Cash, an imposition on the part of the Citizen.“ Sergeant Ordway noted the exorbitant price in his journal as well. Both men chafed at the cost, but there were no complaints about the whiskey's quality. This is the first historic reference to strong spirits at our bend in the river.
Fast forward to the present. Today Pinckney Bend Distillery celebrates the historic town of Pinckney. Our goal is simple; to produce premium quality, hand-crafted spirits worthy of their heritage, one small batch at a time.
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Liberty Spirits Asia is the distributor and supplier for Pinckney Bend's Rested American Whiskey, American Corn Whiskey, American Vodka, and American Gin in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.