Saint Augustine Distillery — Attraction in Saint Augustine

Party of 5 (46,45,40,23,24 yr olds)visiting from Orlando doing the typical tourist things! This review is about the treatment we received from the staff at the door.We all were carded upon arrival to receive our wristbands for free tasting! Until..my 24 yr old son presents an ID that had a small chip taken out of it on the side. The lady, doing her job had to call management. That wasn't the issue! I totally understand she had a job to do and rules to follow as we all do at our place of employment! The issue was the disrespect and condescending way they spoke to us. We were just standing there waiting for management to come You would have thought we were making a scene fighting and arguing. She made a comment to me "I know you are his mother but I have to get management involved, just relax, it will be a minute". Then comes the manager, the situation is explained to her, she looks at our group and says " now we are all going to take a deep breath and relax".. like she is my therapist. For the sake of not wanting to ruin it for the others I bit my tongue at that point and that was very hard.You do not talk to patrons that way! We own a business and I work with client's and patients on all different levels. You do not speak to someone in a condescending manner and try to belittle them. Our entire party was pissed. Had we done something wrong, so be it but we were standing there QUIETLY waiting. If they are that concerned about ID they need to invest in a machine that will give you the info right away whether it is fake or not. We were on George St the day before no issues, the Winery right after, no issues etc.. take some classes on customer service if you plan to work in this type of establishment. It will go a long way! We will NEVER return there because of the way we were treated. I'm writing this with hope they don't treat anyone else this way. The next group may not be as kind as we were when they are spoke to in such a manner. I will address this with management higher up as well. As for the other employees.. no issues at all! They were very informative and pleasant. It may not seem like a big deal to some but if you witnessed it it...

So we live in Florida and felt a trip to st Augustine was in order. We did the tour on the trolly which we loved . One of the stops on the tour is a distillery. We walk in and was greeted right away with a warm welcome and an ear to ear grim from the lady in front of. We signed up and had the first drink. A Florida Mule. A different spin on a drink. Their vodka was very very smooth. We moved to another room and was in the second tasting we met a True people person. Evan was his named we talked about his Tony steward hataka14. lol after a few story on Tony’s racing career we got to the tasting. Wow the gin and tonic was incredible, very light notes of juniper not an in ur face pine taste. Smooth general notes all over the taste buds. But Evan was not done with one drink he offered another. The tiki drink with one of the smoothest rums your will try. After 15 minutes of talking to Evan about his likings of the distillery we moved to the last tasting my favorite is bourbon old fashioned. This didn’t let me down . Stand up great flavors and an open bottle of every they have. Evan told us since we were in a tour bus we could buy and come back in our car to pick up next day. We didn’t take them up on that offer because Evan said he was there the next day so we went back to see him one more time. Ever met someone that seems like your the best friend missing link you kinda been looking for your whole life and only find in Jesus? Well he ain’t Jesus but a true friend to man. This kind of personal service you can not teach your either a true people person or not. Well Evan is a people person and upon seeing him we were welcomed with a huge hug and a warm welcome back by the staff and mostly Evan.. our day was complete by a person who cared enough about his fellow man he made the distillery come to life with his humor and customer service ways. What a truely nice place with many bottle to choose from....

Unfortunately our experience here started with a horrible first impression that left us with a bad taste in our mouth for the rest of the time we spent here which trust me was not long. We've been to a number of distilleries so we didn't need an actual tour of the facility we just wanted to taste what was offered since we're not from the area and this was our first time here. The woman at the desk (I think her name started with an m) was so rude and condescending when I asked if we could just have the tasting without the tour. Mind you they have self guided tours for free but regular guided tours for $35. When I asked my question she replied very rudely with "why wouldn't you want the tour? Don't you want to know what you're tasting" of which I replied "that's what a tasting is...you taste the spirit and whoever pours it tells you about it". That's how it's been done at every other distillery I've been to. If she had given me a polite answer and explained the tour and tasting go together and since it's self guided we can take as long or as short as we want, I wouldn't have been so annoyed. They check ids before the tour and you get a bracelet to make sure you're 21. When my son showed his because he assumed everyone had to show id regardless of drinking or not (hes 19). She made fun of him for showing id and that he can't drink until he's 21 so why would he show his id. I was so shocked at her tone and again condescending attitude that it ruined the rest of the experience at the distillery. I would have given this no stars but the tour was nice with pre made cocktail tastes showing how off their products and tastes of their products at the end and everyone else that worked there was so friendly hence the one star. It such a shame that woman ruined the experience bc of her i would...