A craft distillery in a northern Michigan winery setting: That’s the basic idea behind Bay View Distillery, a new business from the owners of the Leelanau County event venue Bay View Weddings at Gallagher Farms. The project, which has already been partially approved, will get a public hearing tomorrow (Tuesday, April 16) in front of the Elmwood Township Planning Commission. If given the green light, owners say their new tasting room could be open to the public within the next year.

Located in Elmwood Township between Cedar and Greilickville, Bay View Weddings at Gallagher Farms opened as a wedding and event venue in the spring of 2019, touting its scenic cherry orchard setting and “breathtaking” hilltop views of West Grand Traverse Bay. The venue itself is part of the legacy of the Gallagher family, a long-running Leelanau clan that has been farming 400 acres of land in Elmwood Township for seven generations. According to Rose Gallagher, who spearheads the Bay View Weddings business and the new distillery project alongside her husband John Gallagher III and his father, John Gallagher II, the recent diversifications at Gallagher Farms have been gestating for decades.

“My husband and I were high school sweethearts, and even when we were very young, we were talking about opportunities to elevate and highlight agriculture, because it's a really deep part of who we are,” Rose says. “We feel so much value and meaning in not only honoring our family, but also our family's heritage and commitment to working hard to ensure that your farm is successful. And we recognized that there was an opportunity to diversify and provide an opportunity for our community and our neighbors – and those visiting the region – to really enjoy and experience the beauty of northern Michigan by our property.”

Even in their teen years, Rose says she and John had two big ideas for how to bring more people onto the Gallagher Farms property. The first was the wedding venue. The second was a winery or distillery business, which would utilize fruit and other crops grown on the Gallagher Farms property as the basis for its products. With the first of those checked off the to-do list, the Gallaghers set their sights on the latter.

The Gallaghers are already at work constructing a 7,000-square-foot distilling production facility on their property. Elmwood planning commissioners approved that part of the project in September, and Rose says the building is coming together quickly. “We’re actually just working on putting the roof on this week,” she tells the Leelanau Ticker. The project is funded in part by a $100,000 grant, which was awarded by the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development back in 2021.

What isn’t approved yet is the distillery tasting room. Rose says the Gallaghers “applied separately” for the two permits, both because the production facility did not require a special use permit (SUP) and because they “wanted to get going on the construction of the actual manufacturing space” as soon as possible. Tomorrow’s public hearing will focus on the tasting room. If the SUP is approved, the tasting room will “utilize the priorly approved existing structure” of the production facility, according to application materials, occupying approximately 1,000 square feet of that facility.

The distillery is located at 8526 East Lincoln Road and will be accessible by way of a gravel road that “was priorly improved from East Lincoln Road across the overall farm to the subject site.” The production facility was only required to have eight parking spaces, but the plan for the tasting room is calling for an expanded 25-spot parking lot. The application states that the tasting room “shall operate between 10am and 10pm,” though no specific day-to-day or season-to-season fluctuations in hours are specified in the materials.

On the libations front, Rose says the plan is to obtain both a small distiller license and a small winemaker license from the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. “That way, we can have some wine [on the menu], even though distillation is what we’re most passionate about,” she says. Spirits will range from traditional whiskey, vodka, and gin to fruit-forward offerings like liqueurs, brandies, aperitifs, digestifs, and eau-de-vies (a type of light, colorless fruit brandy). As much as possible, the Gallaghers intend to use estate-grown ingredients to make their spirits.

“We’d be able to have all these unique offerings because of our farm and what we grow,” John explains. “So, we could have an Asian pear eau-de-vie that would be offered as a seasonal digestif or aperitif. And then we could offer different seasonal items, so maybe a mulberry spirit or something like that, depending on what we have on the farm at different times of the year.”

“We’re also building this distillery on a fourth-generation cherry farm property, so we’re obviously going to have an abundance of cherry products, as well,” Rose adds.         

As far as timelines go, Rose says Bay View Distillery is “hoping to open in 6-12 months,” depending on SUP approval, construction scheduling, and additional licensing steps. Once up and running, the distillery will “complement” the Bay View Weddings operation by offering Bay View wines and spirits to event clients as part of their beverage packages.

The public hearing for the Bay View Distillery tasting room will take place as part of tomorrow’s Elmwood planning commission meeting, which starts at 6:30pm at Elmwood Township Hall. The full application for the tasting room SUP can be reviewed on pages 99-169 of this packet.