Durham’s drinking scene usually gets written up for its cocktail bars and breweries, but the city has also quietly built a cluster of working distilleries — places where the spirit is actually made on site and where, on the right afternoon, you can watch it happen. Within a short drive you can walk a downtown gin house running cold-vacuum stills, taste bourbon out on a solar-powered farm, or try a vodka distilled from rice in South Durham. A distillery visit is a different outing from a night at a cocktail bar: usually shorter, usually daytime, and built around the production floor and a tasting flight rather than a full bar menu. Here is where to go, what each one makes, and what a visit actually looks like.
Durham Distillery — gin, cream liqueurs, and a cold-vacuum still downtown
Set in the old tobacco district at 711 and 715 Washington Street, Durham Distillery is the city’s best-known spirits house, making Conniption Gins, Damn Fine Vodka, a line of chocolate and coffee cream liqueurs, VACUO cold-distilled cucumber vodka, and Krupnikas, the Lithuanian-style spiced honey liqueur it acquired from the Brothers Vilgalys Spirits Company in 2023. Its signature is cold-vacuum distillation, which pulls delicate botanicals through at low temperature. The Behind-the-Scenes tour runs $20 a person on Saturdays at 3:00 and 4:30, lasts about an hour, and includes a guided walk through the production space, a flight of all their spirits, and a souvenir shot glass; you must be 21 or older. Shorter Quick Tours run during tasting-room hours on Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 7 p.m. and Sundays from 3 to 9 p.m., and the distillery also hosts hands-on cocktail classes for $75 a person, with a new theme each month. The adjoining Conniption Bar & Lounge handles the cocktail side if you would rather just have a drink.
Mystic Farm and Distillery — bourbon made on a working farm
Out on Stallings Road in East Durham (1413 Stallings Rd., 27703), Mystic Farm and Distillery spreads across roughly 22 acres and leans hard into bourbon — its Broken Oak Bourbon, a bourbon liqueur, and a 57 Navy Strength Gin, made from local grain, well water, and North Carolina oak. It bills itself as one of the largest solar-powered bourbon operations anywhere, which is the kind of detail you take in while walking the fields. Visits let you tour the distillery, learn the process, and taste the products. Public hours run Wednesday and Thursday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday noon to 6 p.m.
Liberty & Plenty Distillery — the widest range, on Foster Street
Liberty & Plenty, at 609 Foster Street, makes the broadest spread of any distillery in town, working across five brand lines: Slate Belt vodka, Bronze Bull bourbon and whiskey, Cap & Cane rum, Whirligarden gin, and Gracious Garden, a line of amaro, absinthe, and bitters. The distillery runs a tasting room and cocktail bar on site, so you can drop in for a flight or a cocktail as well as book a tour or a private event. Because published hours shift, it is worth calling ahead at (919) 381-4100 for current tour times before you go.
Weldon Mills Distillery Durham — a distillery-lounge downtown
At 300 East Main Street, Weldon Mills Distillery Durham is the downtown home of Weldon Mills, whose flagship distillery sits up in Weldon, in northeastern North Carolina. The Durham location works as a distillery-and-lounge: small-batch spirits, craft cocktails, a food menu, and live music in a speakeasy-style room a short walk from the American Tobacco Campus. It is the most bar-like of the group, which makes it an easy first stop if you want the spirits without committing to a formal tour. Check its own calendar for hours and music nights, which move around.
Graybeard Distillery — rice vodka in South Durham
Graybeard Distillery, at 4625 Industry Lane in South Durham (27713), makes a single product — Bedlam Vodka, distilled from rice rather than the usual grain or potato, which gives it a softer profile. Tours run Friday and Saturday, last roughly 45 minutes to an hour, and cost $15, which covers a sample of Bedlam at the end and a shot glass to keep; you must be 21 or older. Reservations are online only, with no payment taken at the door, and the production floor is not climate-controlled, so a summer visit runs warm. One note to avoid confusion: Bedlam is the brand, Graybeard is the distillery behind it.
Before You Go
A distillery afternoon is not the same as a night out, so plan for it. Most of these are daytime and often weekend-only — Durham Distillery’s Behind-the-Scenes tour runs Saturdays only, though its Quick Tours run Friday through Sunday, and Graybeard runs Friday and Saturday — and several, Graybeard especially, require a reservation ahead of time rather than a walk-up. Everyone here is 21-plus, so bring ID. It helps to know which places double as bars you can visit without a tour (Liberty & Plenty, Weldon Mills, and Durham Distillery’s Conniption Bar) versus the ones built around the tour-and-tasting itself (Mystic and Graybeard). These are spread across the city — downtown, East Durham, and South Durham — so if you want to string two together, sort out a designated driver first. Above all, confirm hours before you drive out: small distilleries change tour schedules seasonally and around private events, and a posted time is not a promise.
