A new tasting room being planned for the heart of Plymouth’s downtown could begin serving up locally produced blends of bourbon and whiskey soon if it gets city approval for a liquor license.
Highline Spirits Craft Cocktail & Tasting Room is proposed to open at 330 S. Main St. in the former home of Wiltse’s Community Pharmacy.
The city is considering a liquor license for the tasting room. The concept is a high-end cocktail and flight tasting lounge. Highline Spirits will offer blending, cocktail, whiskey 101 and spirits master classes along with private barrel picks for bourbon enthusiasts.
Highline Spirits works with an off-site distillery that manufactures its craft rums, gins, vodkas, bourbons, whiskeys and other spirits.
The idea is to allow “patrons to peek behind the curtain” of drink making by giving them tutorials on traditional spirits, according to a site plan owners submitted to the city.
“We are not a bar. We are only serving spirits that we produce,” the application states. “Therefore, we are not serving Jack Daniels or Grey Goose. We would like to provide a high-end, approachable, neighborhood atmosphere where the community and visitors leave experiencing all that Plymouth and Highline have to offer.”
Highline Spirits is the province of husband and wife Christi and Jeffrey Lower. The couple strive to make artfully reimagined craft spirits that buck age-old traditions and give patrons exciting new twists on cocktail blends.
Christi Lower founded Highline after spending 15 years practicing medicine as a physician assistant at Mott Children’s Hospital on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor.
Jeffrey Lower spent 20 years as an attorney and was a partner at a powerful law firm.
Chrsti earned her distilled spirits management certificate from business school in April 2022 and set off to launch the brand. She indicated she’s been discussing the idea of the tasting room with Plymouth officials since last summer.
“We are a super-premium, ultra-premium destination,” she told the city’s Liquor License Review Committee last month. “So when you go in, you are going to be going in for a shot. You’re going to be going in for a probably $15 to $25 pour. Or a $12 to $18 cocktail.”
A Highline Spirits tasting room is already in the works for Washtenaw County. Owners plan to open that site at 3126 Broad St. in Dexter later this year.
They intend to renovate the Plymouth location inside and out. No kitchen will be on the premises of the two-story 2,700 square-foot building to prepare food. Owners plan to sell pre-packaged snacks to pair with the tastings. They will also partner with nearby restaurants via QR codes customers can use to order take-out deliveries to the tasting room. Private events hosted at Highline Spirits would be catered by outside vendors.
That could be a sticking point for city officials. Plymouth requires restaurants to devote at least 70 percent of its sales to food and a portion of the floor space must be designated for dining, according to zoning regulations.
The city created those conditions in large part because of 336 Main, a cocktail lounge that once occupied the storefront next door to Highline’s proposed location. Officials say there was a high amount of police activity at that alcohol-only taphouse, which served no food. Park Place Gastro Pub, which has since moved into that location, offers a full-service food menu in addition to its brews and booze.
Highline Spirits is currently working with city leaders to tweak its site plan and align it with the new ordinance.
“We’re going to look at our business plan and our options,” Christi Lower told city commissioners during an April 17 public hearing.
