Traverse City Whiskey Co. to open tasting room inside Como’s in Ferndale

Popular Michigan distillery Traverse City Whiskey Co. will open its first tasting room in Metro Detroit when Como’s restaurant relaunches in Ferndale this spring. 

The bar will be inside the longstanding neighborhood restaurant, which is being revived by Peas and Carrots Restaurant Group after several decades of ownership under the Grego family.

The small batch booze makers have been looking for a presence in Metro Detroit for a while, founder Chris Fredrickson said in an e-mail to The Detroit News. The brand wants to offer the Detroit area a “taste of up north” at the Ferndale bar. This will be the company’s first tasting room outside of Traverse City. 

Traverse City Whiskey Co. will serve classic cocktails and sell bottles of its whiskey to take home. The distillery handcrafts a whiskey with a port barrel finish, a rye variety, American cherry whiskey, barrel-proof whiskey and an 86 proof straight bourbon. The lineup also includes their new all-natural Premium Cocktail Cherries. 

In Traverse City, the company has a distillery and the Stillhouse cocktail bar. This year the whiskey makers also purchased a 31,000-square-foot building so they could eventually expand production from 400 barrels a year to 4,000, according to UpNorthLive.com. Products are distributed to more than 20 states.

The tasting room will operate as a separate entity inside of Como’s, 22812 Woodward at Nine Mile in Ferndale. More details on the tasting room will be available closer to the opening date. 

mbaetens@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @melodybaetens