Volunteers aid Iron Shoe Distillery in bottling white rum
Published 9:15 am Monday, April 8, 2019
(Leader photo/EMILY SOBECKI)
Owner, Howard Tuthill, explain to the volunteers how to fill the bottles. (Leader photo/EMILY SOBECKI)
Kim Aird, left, and Winny Winslett, right, both of Niles, help fill up bottles of white rum. (Leader photo/EMILY SOBECKI)
(Leader photo/EMILY SOBECKI)
(Leader photo/EMILY SOBECKI)
NILES — Sunday morning, the smell of alcohol clung thick in the air at Iron Shoe Distillery, soon to be Niles’ newest addition to the restaurant scene.
Pat Aird, of Niles, puts caps on the bottles. (Leader photo/EMILY SOBECKI)
Volunteers filled the work room at the distillery, 3 N. Third St., just after 11 a.m. Sunday to help the owners, Howard and Laura Tuthill, bottle 300 to 400 bottles of white rum in preparation for the restaurant and distillery’s opening next week.
Several volunteers, including Kim and Pat Aird, of Niles, worked to fill, cap and seal the rum, which was distilled Saturday by Howard Tuthill.
“We just wanted to help some place local,” Kim Aird said of why she volunteered Sunday. “This is the most excitement we have seen for a business in downtown Niles in a long while. Aside from the alcohol part of it, I’m excited for all the food and everything that will be happening here. We wanted to come in and see and be a part of that.”
Howard Tuthill said he was grateful for the help of the volunteers and that he was excited for Iron Shoe’s opening this week.
“It’s great being able to get some help from everybody,” he said. “It’s cool because it gets the community involved in the process and lets them see how it is done. Everything is done by hand.”
