Bluebird Distillery In Phoenxville On Track To Expand

PHOENIXVILLE, PA — Phoenixville Borough Council Tuesday night unanimously approved a preliminary plan to expand Bluebird Distillery, a popular whisky-making business at the gateway to the revitalized borough.

The wall facing the entrance to the borough has a colorful mural welcoming tourists to the revitalized steel town at Starr and Bridge streets, along the Schuylkill River.

The plan, known as the “Bluebird Distilling Project,” calls for demolishing the outdoor patio and courtyard and adding a second floor with an outdoor porch.

The grain-to-glass distillery offers cocktails made with vodka, gin, rum, bourbon, and other whisky. It’s open seven days a week from 1 to 11 p.m. It also features hats, shirts, glasses, and gift cards.

The welcome mural will remain and a second mural will be painted on the Starr side of the building.

Jonathan Long, a West Chester lawyer who presented the plan to the council, said the borough's planning commission recommended approval.

“The design is meant to match the history of Phoenixville,” Long said, showing photographs of the proposed changes. “It beckons to the warehouse and factories with the use of metal and steel.”

Long said the addition will be built with redbricks to tie in with the other historic buildings in the borough.

He said there would be no expansion of the production area, just the public areas.

Council questioned if the second-floor construction would obscure the welcome mural in a building next to the distillery.

Long said the patrons eating outside on the second floor will have a nice view of the welcome mural.

Founder Jared Adkins said he became interested in the business when he learned of the easing of spirit laws.

He and his father, Ron, and friend, Pierre, transformed an abandoned building, which was a professional laundry business and auto repair shop, into a distillery.

The distillery opened in 2015. The distillery spirits are sold throughout Pennsylvania and beyond..