New distillery and tasting room with a familiar name coming to downtown Wichita

Wheat State Distilling quietly closed a couple of years ago, but Andover Mayor Ronnie Price is planning to reopen it in new space in downtown Wichita.

“They hadn’t made a drop of liquor for two years before I signed on,” Price said.

The “they” is former owner David Bahre, who founded the business, and silent partners Dave Burk and Dave Wells.

Burk, the Old Town developer, and Wells, the president of Key Construction, are still backers in the business, but Bahre is out.

“Well, to be honest with you, I was just bored,” he said.

Bahre is now starting a business to drill irrigation water wells for farms and homes.

Price has spent considerable time working to get the business reopen, which includes relicensing everything.

“So that’s what I’ve been trying to turn around or we’d have been open a lot sooner,” he said. “It’s not a big deal. We’re to the finish line. We’re just going to have to drag it across.”

Wheat State had been headquartered near 37th North and Hydraulic with a downtown tasting room at the Venue — Distillery 244 Old Town.

The lease up north is now expiring, and Price is moving the business to the southwest corner of Washington and Murdock.

He’ll still supply spirits for the Distillery 244 event center, which Burk and Wells also own.

“We’re still in the same family but . . . it’s a separate entity altogether,” Price said.

The business still will produce Wheat State Bourbon, but Price said, “We’re also going to think out of the box.”

That includes having a smaller still for boutique brandies and other drinks. Price said he’ll be “chasing the fruits,” meaning he’ll look to whatever is in season for his productions.

He said he’s been working with farmers to source corn and wheat along with fruit from nearby orchards.

“It’s going to be a first mile-type situation,” he said of procuring items locally.

Price also is a small partner and salesman for Alchemy Coffee Werks, which sells coffee beans to area businesses, and he plans some coffee-infused liquor as well.

When he was previously in the aerospace industry, Price said he ran 16,000-gallon evaporators, which he said also are known as distillation units, so he said he’s had some experience with the equipment.

Price mentioned to developer Jerry Jones, who is a partner with Wells and Burk in the commercial area at the Heritage development in Andover, that he might want a distillery in one of Heritage’s storefronts.

He also mentioned that he’d heard the former Wheat State still was not in use, though he said he didn’t know who owned it.

“Jerry kind of looked at me and grinned and said, ‘Well, I can introduce you to those guys.’ ”

Price said he doesn’t expect to get any grief for doing the business in Wichita instead of Andover.

“No, not at all,” he said. “It actually makes it a little easier.”

There are no conflicts of interest that way, he said.

There will be a tasting room in the new space to teach customers how to identify flavors in the Wheat State products.

“It’s going to be world class,” Price said.

He said he thought about rebranding the business but decided it would be easier to keep the Wheat State name.

Price said he’ll begin distributing as soon as he has all his licensing, but the tasting room’s grand opening likely won’t happen until November.

“I refuse to do a grand opening until I have everything in place.”

Price said that at the 6,300-square-foot space, there also will be some grain bins out back, a merchandise room and an office, “which I don’t have at City Hall, so I’m pretty damn tickled.”