12/10/2022 0 Comments Lost spirits distilleryAfter college, where he specialized in sculpture and sought to eventually do large-scale municipal projects, he designed amusement park rides for a time. He was the kid who took apart his Nintendo in order to find out how the thing worked before putting it back together again. I always loved the opium den scene in the ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray.’”įrom there, a guided tour culminates in the “20,000 Leagues Beneath the Sea” tasting room.Įverything here seems like a direct reflection of Davis himself. “It’s all my favorite stuff out of literature. “Most of the spaces are sort of all my favorite books,” he says. One of Davis’ faves: the tucked-away Dorian Gray opium den. There are Easter eggs throughout the complex. Visitors can sample five rums and whiskeys during a trip here. The distillery opens with a drink in a tree-and-candle-festooned jungle setting, before leading guests into a what looks like a centuries-old town to wander about. He steers the cart to our destination, where it takes your eyes to adjust a minute to adjust to a darkness that consumes you as completely as guests consume the spirits that Davis shares. He’s got a scientist’s mind fused with a beach bum’s affable, come-as-you-are demeanor, the kind of guy who breaks down complex chemical reactions off the top of his head while dressed like a Jimmy Buffet die-hard in a light blue Hawaiian shirt and shorts, frequently punctuating his sentences with an easy laugh. The Lost Spirits experience begins inside Area15, where visitors sip spirits in a pair of rooms before being transported to the adjacent distillery.Įven though he owns the place, Davis still serves as a tour guide from time to time, and he’s good at it: One minute he’s waxing about the process that yeast cells use to pull oxygen out of sugar molecules, the next he’s detailing how elephants schedule their mating seasons when fruits are fermenting on the ground. “Just that moment of the boat sinking into the pier as he then steps straight off it is, like, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty much my life.’ But it gets bigger and cooler each time.”ĭavis gives the marching orders from the behind the wheel of a gilded-looking, gold-and-red motorized cart that could pass for something that The Great Gatsby might tour his estate in. I tend to look at Jack Sparrow,” Davis grins. “You’ll sometimes hear business people talk about different old famous business people as their idols, and who they look up to and get guidance from. It’s an oddly unique experience destined to have booze hounds baying at the moon - Davis’ spirits have taken home the gold medal at the 2016 International Rum Renaissance Festival in Miami, won best in class the following year at the same event, been named the 2019 American Craft Whiskey of the Year at London’s Wizards of Whisky awards and more.Īnd it’s all designed by a 40-year-old autodidact who takes the occasional life cue from a fictional pirate. He’s bringing the concept to Vegas, debuting on August 15. So, in 2016, he did just that, opening what would be prove to be a popular themed distillery in Los Angeles. “I liked the idea of building a crazy distillery that’s also kind of an amusement park,” Davis explains. This is his newest dream factory: Lost Spirits Las Vegas, which could be equated to an adult Disneyland where you can sip high-end hooch on the rides. “It’s my favorite room,” says Davis, a man who’s been likened to a rum-and-whiskey Willy Wonka enough times in various publications that he should probably have it inscribed on his business card by now. Leonard Cohen’s subterranean-baritone plays in the background, his voice as deep as the ocean itself. “Welcome to the Nautilus, if you will,” says Bryan Davis as he heralds guests into a re-creation of the submarine from the aforementioned science fiction adventure novel.Īnthropomorphic sea creatures swim outside the vessel’s portals the candelabra casting a dim glow from above sway in unison, as if the submarine is being pitched about in the depths of a roiling sea. It’s all part of entering the “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” tasting room. And, of course, there’ll be a moment when the lights go down and ’90s novelty relic Big Mouth Billy Bass serenades us with Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” In a nondescript warehouse space just outside the Area15 arts and entertainment complex, we’re about to be submerged in a faux-aquatic fantasia of fish with human faces and 105-proof whiskey. (Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal) Jules Verne of booze leads the way. The "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" tasting room is designed like the submarine Nautilus from the science fiction adventure classic.
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