Kapitan Distillery

The Balanagar industrial estate is a tough place, especially in the heat of the summer when the sun is beating down on the metal roofs. Kapitan Distillery is at A-10, and you can usually smell the fermentation and the grain from the moment you turn into the gate. It’s a big, noisy space with lots of pipes and large tanks. We aren’t a boutique place with tours and tasting rooms; we are a working distillery where things get done. The floor is usually a bit damp from cleaning, and the sound of the bottling line is like a constant heartbeat in the background. We have a small office tucked away in the front where the air conditioning barely works, but it’s where we keep the records and handle the government paperwork, which is always a lot in this business. The workers here are a hardy bunch. We’ve worked together for a long time, and we know exactly how the machinery behaves when it’s running at full capacity. We don’t talk about heritage or craft very much; we just focus on making sure the batches are consistent and the trucks leave on time. Lunch is usually brought from home and eaten in the shade of the loading dock. It’s manual work and it’s greasy sometimes, but it’s what we know. We just stay focused on the production and keep the Kapitan name moving out the door.