Kozuba and Sons Distillery — Local services in Pinellas Park

Four of us took a tour of Kozuba and Son's Distillery on a Friday afternoon recently. According to their website, the Only thing that excites them more than their spirits, is the opportunity to share them. "Handcrafted" isn't just a label to them, it's what they do. Devon, our guide, explained that every part of the process is guided by their hands. They begin with hand-selected grain, then hand-mix and hand-mash the grain to get the perfect blend before distillation begins.

We were warmly greeted by Devon, and we were each offered a taste of Kozuba Lemon Flavored Vodka which was very fresh tasting. Definitely there was no chemical aftertaste as I often find in the commercially flavored vodkas.

We walked into the distillery and learned that this dream started in 2005 in Poland. Zbigniew "Papa" Kozuba, a biochemist and businessman, retired and moved to the countryside. While there, Papa began tinkering with cordials, continuing a tradition of infused spirits that many Polish families honored. His sons joined him and Papa and his sons turned the hobby into a business. After a few years producing a successful line of cordials, they ordered a hybrid copper still and shortly thereafter, they were distilling vodkas. Later on, the first Polish single malt whiskeys and other varieties of the brown spirit evolved.

The family decided to move the business to Florida's Grand Central District - an area thirsty for small-batch, local spirits. They have two handmade German hybrid copper stills which they brought to the U.S., one is for vodkas and the other is used for whiskey. I recommend that everyone take a tour to learn for yourself about the processes.

We headed back to the tasting room and experienced several delicious types of vodkas, whiskeys, Sunshine State Agave and cordials, etc.

The BarBox Negroni and the Cranberry & Juniper Flavored Vodka were my favorite that day. I'm looking forward to the bourbon being ready soon too.

We stopped in their on-site store and did not leave...

If I could give more stars I would. I scheduled a tour here for my 30th birthday for a group of friends. This was the BEST distillery experience I and my friends have ever had. We have been talking about it still. The workers were all super knowledgeable about the entire process, products and more. They were also very flexible with our party when it came to us having to rescheduled. We enjoyed a private tour of the distillery while also tasting a lot of their product. I love that we were told about the products we were trying before tasting them so we had a better understanding. Not only is their distillery also beautiful but clean and everything we tried was delicious. We are already discussing wanting to go back for more! If you have never been here I...

A very cool establishment. The product is well worth what they charge, always nice to support local!

The three stars is more for the tour. We went for a tour on a Saturday, I had been on another small craft distillery tour years ago and the tour guide at Kozuba and Sons was not very knowledgeable on the process, repeating how they had not been present for production and was not sure about XYZ. I wish I could recommend the tour, but for $10 it is certainly not worth it. The product does indeed taste good and definitely worth supporting the local scene via purchasing their spirits.

I do not recommend the $10 for the tour; just go, have a drink or two and buy a bottle or three. The Mr. Rye is very good as is...