Distilling spirits is as much art as it is science. It’s an art that hasn’t changed much in the last century. Next Century Spirits, a startup high tech entrepreneurial company located in Raleigh, North Carolina embraces both the art and the science. The company focuses its technology efforts not on the front end but the back end with finishing techniques.
Next Century Spirits blends together traditional techniques and unique finishing technologies to create enhanced distilled spirits. The company’s patented post distillation filtering and finishing technology creates a tool for the traditional distiller to expand their repertoire of achievable flavors and aromas while improving quality, maintaining consistency, and reducing supply chain issues. You won’t find any claims of rapid aging, that’s not at all what this is about.
The company was founded in 2018 and recently completed its second and closing round Series C funding of $6 million led by the Blue Hill Group, a private equity firm based in Chapel Hill. This follows an initial round of $3.6 million in 2018. The round includes many of its existing investors including Seagram heir Matthew Bronfman who is also Chairman of the Board for Next Century Spirits.
“Our team is elated to secure a funding milestone during this global pandemic; our continued growth and future growth prospects have not gone unnoticed by investors,” said Scott Bolin, CEO of Next Century Spirits. “We proactively supported communities and local distilleries and breweries by shifting the use of our equipment to produce medical-grade hand sanitizer at a multi-state level including small businesses, medical facilities and military organizations.”
The latest funding will support Next Century Spirits in its expansion of staffing and production infrastructure to meet the industry’s growing need of a “one-stop shop” for a wide range of spirits across a breadth of price offerings.
“I am continually impressed with Next Century’s ability to provide high-quality spirits through its proprietary technology which is uniquely positioned for continued growth in the industry,” said Board member Steve Lerner of the Blue Hill Group. “The company has established a foothold in the market as startups and established brands alike look to innovation for a more diverse product portfolio to scale their business.”
Bolin recently sat down for an interview with Ilias Mastrogiannis at Distillery Nation for the podcast below to learn about the company and what they have in the works.
Is Next Century Spirits About Rapid Aging? No.
Rapid aging is a phrase that comes with negative connotations across the distilled spirits industry. In a recent interview Bolin explains that the technology that they provide is applied after distillation but emphasizes that what they do has nothing to do with rapid aging.
“We go out of our way to make sure that customers understand, that we are not a rapid aging company,”said Bolin. “We are not Dr. Who, we don’t control time. We are a finishing company or filtration company.”
Next Century Spirits formulates, blends, and finishes custom-made spirits for distillers and brand owners around the world. The company’s patented post-distillation finishing and filtering technology allows both existing brands and new market entrants to expand their repertoire of taste profiles, improve consistency, and raise overall quality in an economical manner.
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