The Camden police chief is planning to make moonshine — and vodka, whiskey, rum and tequila — but it’s all strictly legal.
If all goes as planned, Police Chief Boyd Woody and his wife, Kaye, will be opening Ouachita County’s first liquor distillery (at least, in modern times) sometime this summer: 316 Distillery at 1292 Hwy. 278W in Camden.
Although he has no experience in commercial liquor manufacturing, he has brewed beer as a hobby and has friends in the industry, citing Bobby Glaze, co-founder with wife, Lauren, of Camden’s first craft brewery, Native Dog Brewing, which opened a couple of years ago.
“It was just something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a few years,” Woody said. “I’m getting close to the time that I can retire in the next, probably, four years or so from my everyday job. It’s just something that I wanted to get started so I’d have something to kind of do after my retirement.”
He has bought a multifunctional still that will allow him to make vodka, whiskeys, rum, tequila and moonshine. “I didn’t want to be just a single-spirit distillery,” Woody said. The distillation processes are similar; it’s the ingredients that make the difference, he said. “We’re going to try it all.”
316 Distillery will occupy a 3,000-SF building with the distillery in one half and a tasting room in the other.
Woody is hoping, “fingers crossed,” to open around the first of July.
As for opening a distillery while continuing his job as police chief, he acknowledged that “some people find that odd, so, let me tell you, the first thing I did, being in law enforcement, being the chief of police, was in fact make sure there wasn’t any type of conflict with my current position and this one [distillery owner] and there’s not.”
The name of the distillery refers to a number, 316, that has popped up through his life “for many, many years,” Woody said. “For years, the number 316 has just kind of followed me.” For example, it was his badge number when he started in law enforcement. He’s hoping it continues to be a lucky number.
The distillery “is a new adventure for me and it’s just something I’ve been wanting to do for years, so I’m going to take a run at it and see what happens.”
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