ChainBridge, South Florida’s newest distillery, pours fruit brandy and vodka in Oakland Park

Sep 12, 2023

Big Cypress Distillery / Courtesy

Fernando Plata is one of the co-owners of Big Cypress Distillery in Miami.

Big Cypress Distillery / Courtesy

Magic City Gin and Hell's Bay Rum are the flagship spirits at Big Cypress Distillery, offering tours and merch at its Miami tasting room.

John McCall / Sun Sentinel

Along with vodka and fruit brandy, glassware, T-shirts and hats are available in the tasting room at ChainBridge Distillery. Distillery tours will also be offered.

John McCall / Sun Sentinel

The still at ChainBridge Distillery in Oakland Park.

John McCall / Sun Sentinel

ChainBridge Distillery owner Bela Nahori makes an adjustment to his still in Oakland Park.

Bela Nahori quit his accounting job, sold his home and car in Ohio and sold his parents’ house, too – all to purchase the gleaming copper still now pumping out fruit brandy at his new ChainBridge Distillery in Oakland Park.

Which means Nahori's entire family is counting on the success of his 4,000-square-foot distillery at 3500 NE 11th Ave., a business also owned by his wife Katie, sister Monika, and his parents, Agnes and Bela.

Together, Nahori and his family spend their days filtering, blending and flavoring ChainBridge's line of spirits, including sugarcane-distilled vodka and plum and blueberry brandies, with gin and whiskey soon to be added. Fruit brandy, known as pálinka in Hungary, is one of the country's national drinks, and Nahori says the name, ChainBridge, is a nod to the famous suspension bridge linking Buda and Pest.

"We want to take our heritage of making fruit brandy and bridge it with South Florida," says the Hungarian-born Bela Nahori, 38. "People once used it as medicine, but in modern days, it's become a sipping drink for before and after dinner to aid with digestion."

The Nahoris first hatched the distillery idea three years ago over Christmas dinner at Bela's parents’ house in Cleveland. Agnes, Bela's mother, suggested they take their background distilling pálinka in the Tokaj winemaking region of northeastern Hungary and buy a still. The family moved to Oakland Park near his sister Monika and opened ChainBridge in the city's rising Culinary Arts district with help from a $12,000 CRA grant. The distillery occupies a one-story warehouse a few blocks south of Funky Buddha Brewery, off North Dixie Highway.

"In my country, everyone has a still at home, but not this big," says Bela Nahori Sr., drumming the still's copper surface on a recent Wednesday. A basil-infused vodka dripped from the still's metal nozzle into a food-grade bucket.

Fruit brandy, unlike vodka, takes months of painstaking effort to distill. The stems and pits of each fruit and vegetable must first be removed by hand before being stuffed into a mash tun, a stainless-steel pot that pulverizes fruit into juice and pulp. From there, the mash spends two weeks fermenting inside one of Nahori's five tanks before it's distilled. After spending three months maturing, the fruit brandy is hand-bottled. Each batch yields about 50 bottles, says Nahori, who's also experimenting with beet- and turnip-based brandies.

"I loved the plum. You can still taste the rind," says Stephanie Casariego, of Miami, on a recent visit to the distillery with her husband, Chris. "It's really good, strong but in a good way. That's how you know you’re not drinking a cheap liquor."

Right now, drinkers who visit ChainBridge's tasting room can sample and buy spirits ($29.99 for a 350-milliliter bottle of brandy, $19.99 for vodka). But the tasting room, featuring a rustic central bar and plush sofas, a communal table on wheels and a gift shop, doesn't sell liquor shots the same way craft breweries sell pints.

Local distillers, per Florida law, can only sell pre-packaged bottles to the public for take-home drinking, or they can give away unlimited samples, Nahori says. Nahori also can't make cocktails, and customers can buy up to six bottles a year from distilleries.

ChainBridge Distillery is open 3-7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday and noon-9 p.m. Saturday. Tours cost $10 and include samples. Call 954-900-3924 or visit the distillery's Facebook page and Instagram.

The spirits of South Florida

To lure adventurous drinkers to hang around longer inside distillery tasting rooms, local distilleries have gotten creative, adding guided tours, classes on gin-making, parlor games and gift shops.

Along with ChainBridge, South Florida is currently home to six other distilleries: Oak and Cane in Fort Lauderdale, maker of Oak and Cane Rum; South Florida Distillers, makers of FWAYGO Rum in Fort Lauderdale; Palm Beach Distillery, makers of Lost Harbour vodka and rum in West Palm Beach; Steel Tie Spirits Company, makers of Black Coral Rum in West Palm Beach; Miami Club Rum in Doral; and Big Cypress Distillery in Miami.

Here are four distilleries feature tasting rooms open to the public. Prefer buying bottles to visiting tasting rooms? Check each distillery's website for a rundown of current retailers selling their spirits.

Steel Tie Spirits Company

1615 Clare Ave., West Palm Beach; 561-722-4834 or SteelTieSpiritsCo.com

Who they are: Named for the Seaboard Airline Railroad tracks that once ran beneath his warehouse in West Palm Beach, Ben Etheridge's 6,600-square-foot distillery is set to open within weeks. His warehouse and tasting room is located next door to food hall Grandview Public Market and Steel Horse Brewing. Steel Tie, he says, is a nod to his family's South Florida roots: His father's great uncle, Elias Markham, was a railroad foreman who helped lay West Palm Beach railroads in the 1910s. "One guy never got any work done, so one day Elias tied a railroad spike around his neck so he wore it as a steel tie, a constant reminder to do his job," Etheridge says. Etheridge turned the metal of one piece of railroad track — stamped 1917 — into a distillation column of his custom, 2,000-gallon hybrid pot still. Etheridge operates the distillery with his retired father, Clint, and brand manager John Moore.

Spirits worth sipping: Black Coral Rum, which he began distilling in 2015, uses blackstrap molasses from sugarcane fields in Belle Glade to create his white and spiced rum varieties. New coffee rums, made from beans sourced from two Palm Beach roasters, will be ready within a month. He also sells Steel Tie Vodka, a blend made from distilled corn, rye and wheat. Future spirits include Juniper Jean Gin and Elias Tobin Whiskey. All alcohols are 80 proof.

Before you visit: Once the distillery opens, its 1,600-square-foot tasting room will feature 1920s-era antique furniture (including a baby grand piano) and a gift shop selling Steel Tie merch and drinking glassware. Hourly tours cost $15, and hours will be posted on Steel Tie Spirit's website once the distillery opens.

South Florida Distillers Inc.

2612 S. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale; 954-541-2868 or SouthFloridaDistillers.com

Who they are: Founded by distillers Joe Durkin and Avi Eisenberg in 2015, the duo specializes in small-batch rums. After spending years seeking state approval for a tasting room, Durkin says he scrapped the idea. Now his distillery, behind the Old Ghosts Collective antique shop near Port Everglades, rents out its facility to startup distiller brands such as Ziami and Kush.

Spirits worth sipping: FWAYGO rum, sold in Handcrafted (white), Single Barrel (barrel-aged) and Grilled Pineapple (pineapple-infused) varieties.

Before you visit: There's no tasting, but the public can sign up for two-hour gin-making classes ($75-$192 via Groupon). These DIY sessions allow visitors to make and take home a 750-milliliter bottle of gin, and attendees can spice their gin with up to 24 botanicals, including cardamom, cherry bark and rosebuds. Classes are only offered 6-10 p.m. Fridays and 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturdays.

Big Cypress Distillery

13995 SW 144th Ave. #207, Miami; 786-228-9740 or BigCypressDistillery.com

Who they are: Named after the stately trees that thrive in the Everglades, Big Cypress comes from Fernando Plata, his cousin Mark Graham and in-law, Danny Garo. The self-taught Plata uses a 50-gallon still.

Spirits worth sipping: There is 90-proof Magic City Gin, a smooth-tasting gin infused with wood notes and 11 different botanicals, including juniper, orange peel and coriander; and 90-proof Hell's Bay Rum, a Spanish-style dry rum aged in oak barrels with notes of caramel and charred oak.

Before you visit: The distillery shop, which sells drinking glassware, T-shirts and other experimental small-batch gins, is open 4-8 p.m. Fridays and noon-6 p.m. Saturdays. Tours ($39-$75 via Groupon) are available by appointment and include souvenir glasses and $5 off bottles.

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