Kathy and Bob Ryan pose this week in front of Ryan & Wood’s massive German-made copper still at their distillery on Great Republic Drive in Gloucester.
(Photo: Erika Brown)
Bob Ryan and Doug Ryan set up for in-store tasting, one of hundreds of tastings.
From left, Doug Ryan, Bob Ryan, Dave Wood at the still in 2012. (Courtesy photo)
Douglas Ryan and Kathy Ryan representing at Fraternal Order of Moai, Queequeg Chapter, “Luau at the Lake” Lake George, NY, June 2011. Many of the company's “Luau at the Lake” relics can be seen at Jack’s Barber Shack, Beverly location.
The local distillery was a 4th of July parade mainstay in Beverly Farms, Manchester, Gloucester and Rockport. This float featured a tiki bar theme. (Courtesy photo)
“Good Morning Gloucester” Bloody Mary contest panel. September 2013, The Judges: Ed Collard, Karen Ristuben, Kathy Downer, Fred Bodin and James Eves.
Dave Wood and Bob Ryan at the “Tiki” still, Gloucester, June 2009.
Fans of Ryan & Wood’s Folly Cove Rum, Knockabout Gin or Beauport Vodka are plenty in these parts. And they have only a few more days to stock up before the local distillery closes its doors for good after a 16-year run next week.
Bob Ryan, 68, who founded the company with his nephew David Wood in 2006, has decided it is time to retire. Ryan and his wife Kathy (Willwerth) Ryan, who has worked tirelessly with her husband at the helm of the distillery, announced their decision to sunset the business earlier this month.
“Frankly, I know who I am and I know I just don’t have the energy anymore,” said Ryan.
The team has set Monday, December 12, as the last day to sell the remaining stock of whiskey, gin, vodka and rum, some are in very limited quantities.
Ryan, who grew up on Cedar Street in Gloucester, spent much of his early days working on the waterfront at his parent’s seafood processing plant. Kathy grew up in Manchester, one of 14 siblings in a popular Willwerth family. The couple lives in Manchester, and they raised their two children, Carolyn and Doug, in town although Bob says even though he lives in Manchester, he considers himself “through-and-through Gloucester.”
Back in 2006, Dave Wood—son of Kathy’s sister Gretchen, Manchester’s retired longtime Town Clerk and Frank Wood, Manchester’s longtime police dispatcher—was a young attorney in Manchester when he and Bob Ryan got together. They were, he said, “looking for something new to do.”
That something turned out to be Ryan & Wood.
“We were looking for something that was a little bit manufacturing but would also hold hands with tourism and education,” said Ryan.
Ryan said that offering tours of the manufacturing side of the distillery, as well as attending sipping events around eastern Massachusetts helped get the word out about Gloucester and offered something for tourists to do on rainy summer days.
Ryan & Wood’s first customer was Beauport Financial, a financial planning business that asked if they could custom-make vodka to give to clients for the holidays. (They could). The company asked if Ryan & Wood could fill the order in time for their holiday party at The Franklin, the popular Main Street restaurant. (They could).
By the time they delivered the order, the Gloucester restaurant took Ryan & Wood’s Beauport Vodka into their bar offering. It was their first wholesale order. And to this day, The Franklin is still a customer.
Back then, it was “an open field” as far as local craft distilleries were concerned. Yes, there were many small beer and winemakers, but few tried to get into the liquor-making business, partly because the federal rules were antiquated, going back to 1933 when Prohibition was overturned.
“One of the old rules was that the distillery had to be locked up with a chain and large lock,” said Ryan laughing, whose distillery is in the basement of the company’s office in the Cape Ann Industrial Park. “It would have been crazy for us to use a chain and lock on our front door.”
Ryan thanked state Sen. Bruce Tarr and state Reps. Tony Verga, Brad Hill and Ann-Margaret Ferrante, among others, for helping get rules changed and/or loosened to allow smaller distilleries to operate in the 21st Century.
At its height, Ryan & Wood was producing about 200 cases a month of its various liquors. Ryan said that sales fluctuated during the year. For example, gin was mainly a summer product, selling mostly from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
For the first six years of the company, Ryan said they handled the distribution themselves. He was running all over eastern Massachusetts, delivering to restaurants, bars and liquor stores. But that meant he would react quickly, unlike the “big boys” that would take weeks to ship an order. “The week before Christmas, when liquor stores and bars were running out of different products and they needed it tomorrow, that was a big week for us,” said Ryan. “After New Year’s, it would drop right off. Thank God for St. Patrick’s Day.”
Ryan is also proud that the distillery always took part in the four local Fourth of July parades — in Gloucester, Manchester, Rockport and Beverly Farms.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Restaurants and bars were closed. Even liquor stores, which were open, were only selling the cheapest brands, according to Ryan. Sales plummeted.
One thing that helped Ryan & Wood through the pandemic was making hand sanitizer.
“We were holding a lot of rum, gin, vodka in containers downstairs in tanks,” said Ryan. “We took those, re-distilled it, to get to the 95 percent (ethanol).” Then it was just a case of adding a little hydrogen peroxide, some glycerol and water and you had hand sanitizer that met the World Health Organization’s requirements to kill the COVID virus.
“Our first hand sanitizer smelled like gin,” said Ryan. “We only sold three days a week because we needed the other two to assemble the product. I’d come in at 10 o’clock and there would be a line of 10 to 20 cars waiting. It was the hardest I ever worked in my life.”
Ryan was again thankful to a couple of the neighboring companies in the industrial park, who helped with supplying gallon jugs and the isopropyl alcohol.
Ryan said they gave a lot of the hand sanitizer away, especially to local Public Works departments that were interacting with the public daily.
Trying to ramp up the company again after the pandemic was another reason Ryan decided it was time to retire. He has four grandchildren that he looks forward to spending more time with.
His partner and co-founder, Dave Wood died in 2012.
The world misses Dave. He was a good guy,” said Ryan.
Ryan’s son, Doug, took over the legal side of the business after Wood’s death. Other members of the Ryan family also worked at the distillery.
In the end, says Bob Ryan, the pandemic was a big “bump in the road and kind of took the gas out of myself and Kathy (Ryan) and the whole family.”
Ryan said that the December 12 date was a firm cutoff because he is facing a knee operation —the result of years of playing softball and other sports in his younger days — scheduled for December 13.
In the meanwhile, Ryan has been slowly selling off the equipment and other stock from the office and plant, including some 50 or more barrels of aged rum.
“It really broke my heart to let those go,” said Ryan.
But over 16 years, Ryan & Wood has built a business, a loved local business that has brought a lot of joy and hometown pride to countless people on Cape Ann and throughout the North Shore. And that’s something you can hang your hat on.
