Adam Spiegel

“Sonoma Distilling”

Adam Spiegel is a San Francisco native. Born May 6, 1984, the city kid often rode north with his parents into Sonoma County, exploring the Pacific coastline, attending concerts, and wandering through tasting rooms while the adults sampled wine. Those trips left him with a lasting sense that Sonoma was special ground for people who cared about what they made and how they made it. Once he had finished high school, Spiegel left California for Pennsylvania to attend Dickinson College, where he majored in political science. While there, he developed a strong interest in startups and entrepreneurial projects, the first hints that he was less interested in a traditional, linear career than in building something of his own. After graduating from Dickinson in 2006, he followed a far more conventional path: finance. He first went to New York City, taking a financial sales job, and later returned to the Bay Area to work at a firm managing money for foundations and endowments. For a time, it looked like he might spend his professional life in suits and offices rather than bottling rooms and barrelhouses.

The Great Recession changed that. In September 2008, Spiegel was laid off from the financial sales firm where he worked; he later recalled sitting in his car in the parking lot, 24 years old and suddenly without a job, realizing that he had “no tangible skills” in the sense of making something with his hands. That moment pushed him to rethink what he wanted his work, and his legacy, to be. Around that same time, Spiegel began helping a distiller friend in back in California. What started as assistance quickly became an education. He learned to ferment and distill in stages: first beer, then wine, then grappa, and finally whiskey. The complexity and history of whiskey captured him. He also identified a gap in the California market: Distilling in the state had long centered around fruit brandies or grape-based spirits, but there were very few producers focused entirely on grain whiskey, and fewer still using traditional pot stills in a grain-to-glass model.

So, drawing on the support of family and friends, Spiegel decided that if he was going to change careers, he would do it completely. The idea for his own distillery took shape: a small, hands-on operation in Sonoma County dedicated solely to whiskey. In 2010, that idea became reality. Spiegel and his original business partner opened a tiny 784-square-foot warehouse distillery in Rohnert Park, initially known as 1512 Spirits. They worked on a tight budget, learning to run a distillery while still building it, and leaning heavily on a handmade 125-gallon Portuguese pot still purchased at significant personal expense. From the start, the focus was whiskey and nothing else—a rarity in a craft scene where many small distilleries launched with easier-to-sell vodka or gin. The startup was described as California’s only whiskey-focused distillery, and one of the first 200 “new-wave” distilleries in the United States.

Spiegel’s approach emphasized three major points: grain-to-glass production, with all whiskey distilled in-house rather than sourced; traditional double distillation in copper pot stills, inspired by Scottish and Cognac methods, using direct flame rather than steam; and local, non-GMO California grains, largely sourced within about 100 miles of the distillery. His early releases included rye and bourbon whiskeys, often featuring cherrywood-smoked malted barley, as well as wheat whiskey. The “West of Kentucky” Bourbon series, for example, combined yellow corn, unmalted rye, and cherrywood-smoked barley, all double-distilled and aged in charred newAmerican oak. By 2013, it became clear that the company needed a new direction. Spiegel bought out his original partner and took full control of the business, committing himself to distilling seven days a week to meet growing demand in California and beyond.

As the operation expanded, the distillery’s name evolved as well, from ‘1512 Spirits’ to ‘Sonoma County Distilling Company,’ and ultimately to ‘Sonoma Distilling Company,’ each step reaffirming the connection between the whiskey and its home county. The footprint grew from the original 784-square-foot space to a 6,000-square-foot facility, and later to a 12,000-square-foot distillery and warehouse complex, still in Rohnert Park. During this period, Spiegel deepened his technical expertise. A key influence was legendary brandy distiller Hubert Germain-Robin, whose emphasis on old-world technique and meticulous pot-still work resonated with Spiegel’s own ambitions for Sonoma’s whiskeys.

As Sonoma Distilling matured, Spiegel also began building a broader platform for whiskey production and support. The distilling operation eventually became part of Corning & Company, a business that offers contract production, barrel management, packaging, warehousing, compliance, and route-to-market services for other brands, while continuing to steward the Sonoma whiskey portfolio. However, in February 2025, Spiegel announced that he was leaving his role as President of Corning & Company to focus on a new venture, Freebrook Imports, while continuing to consult for Sonoma Distilling and other whiskey projects. Freebrook is positioned as a California-based importer and distributor of spirits, giving Spiegel another way to shape how whiskey and other craft spirits move through the market, not just how they are made.

During the many changes that have occurred, constants which have remained for Spiegel, are his love of family. Spiegel married his wife Ashley, in 2014, and the couple now share a curious 7-year old and a sweet toddler. What else has perpetually persisted is Spiegel’s insistence on doing things the “hard way”: pot stills instead of columns, grain-to-glass instead of sourcing, an unwavering focus on whiskey in a state much better known for its vino. For a kid who once played among the vines while his parents tasted Sonoma wine, his legacy so far is helping ensure that when people think of Sonoma today, they think not only of cabernet and chardonnay, but also of bold, distinctly California whiskey drawn from his stills.

Sources:

Sonoma Distilling Company homepage, sonomadistillingco.com
Dickinson College, “Young Alum Makes Splash”, MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson, July 1, 2015
Made Local Mag,“Listening to the Spirit…”, Jess D. Taylor, Nov/Dec, 2019
American Whiskey Mag,“Interview:…Adam Spiegel”, Phoebe Calver, July 15, 2019
Whisky Me, “Sonoma Distilling Company”, August 9, 2021, whisky-me.com
Edible LA, “Sustainability in California’s Distilleries”, ediblela.com/news
Barrel Room Chronicles (podcast), S3, Ep14, “Corning & Co.: One Stop Shop”
BevNET, “Adam Spiegel Launches Freebrook Imports”, February 24, 2025, bevnet.com

Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee