Linda co-founded Bloomery Distillery with its all natural, farm-fresh award winning SweetShines in 2011. Linda was the CCO and COO for 9 years—her creative vision and execution propelled the Distillery to become the #1 craft distillery in the US per Yelp and Travel and Leisure Magazine. The original farm and tasting room was located where the Blue Ridge Mountains meet the Shenandoah River in Charles Town, West Virginia, on a 12-acre farm. Outgrowing the little log cabin in the woods, the operation moved to a production and warehousing facility in downtown Charles Town. The team took the "SweetShine" brand, a name derived from the way the old timer's used to do it, naturally, with four ingredients: moonshine, pure cane sugar, water and farm fresh fruit, roots or nuts, to "MixAlchemy" a line of craft canned cocktails derived from the SweetShine brand. The crafted name MixAlchemy denoted 1. any seemingly magical process of transforming or combining elements into something new.
2. obsessed principally with finding the spirit of life.
INSPIRED BY THE ART OF CRAFTING
HOME-GROWN, NATURAL FRUIT CORDIALS,
The Bloomery Brand, which the company whimsically touted as an “artisanal blend of vice and virtue,” was honored with numerous five-star awards including:
• 2019 SWEPT: Gold, Silver, Silver & Bronze San Francisco World Spirits
• 2018 #1 Distillery in America, Yelp & Travel & Leisure Magazine
• 2018 Silver San Francisco World Spirits
• 2017 Silver New York World Spirits
• 2017 Bronze San Francisco World Spirits
• 2015 Double Gold San Francisco World Spirit
• 2015 Bronze San Francisco World Spirit
• 2015 Good Food Award WINNER Pumpkin Spice
• 2014 Gold Wine and Spirit Wholesalers of America.
THE #1 DISTILLERY IN AMERICA
per Yelp and Travel & Leisure Magazine, November 2018
COURAGE | COMMITMENT | CREATIVITY | CHALLENGE
More than 100,000 unique visitors passed through Bloomery’s doors from 2011-2019, hailing from every continent around the world. The Distillery engaged with it's 25,000+ social media fans on every level.
“One of the great things we did was customer service, customer engagement, which I think is important in any business,” Linda said. “We had a unique cast of characters. Everyone participated in that. Customers called Bloomery ‘the happiest place in the world.’ ”
Linda credits much of the success of Bloomery to that cast of characters, whom she describes as "like a family”. The group often dined out together or just sat around a bonfire and socialized after hours.
Linda believes that entrepreneurial success requires four “C’s”: courage, commitment, creativity and challenge, and these principles grew the business into an engaging, unique brand, allowing the team to have a lot of fun and adventure in the process.