Great Lakes Distillery

I’m not a huge beer drinker due to the fact that I have a gluten allergy so thought this would be something different. For 7 dollars I don’t think you can go wrong. Although the craft cocktails were not the absolute best I have had, they were relatively inexpensive and the tour was very interesting. This would be a great tour for a group!

Not much to see but the tour guide was knowledgeable and we got to sample six different spirits…

Great place to visit. Do a tour, but grab a drink while you wait for the tour to start; a classy offering of cocktails (featuring the spirits you’re about to try) awaits you.
The tour is great. Thank goodness our tour guide explained the distilling process and that any vodka that says «triple distilled» is making a claim as grand as «the sky is blue» (i.e. they’re all distilled at least three times; often more). We had a great sampling of spirits at the end of the tour.
I really liked their whiskeys and vodkas. I’m not a gin fan, but I was convinced to try it; it wasn’t half bad! All are very smooth and have good flavor. Their products are good; this is just a fun affordable way to try them all!

I had never been to a distillery before but I have been to a handful of breweries. This is a very small distillery so there is not much to see when doing the «tour», whereas the brewerys I have been to are huge and there is a decent amount of walking involved. The cost is $ 7 for a 1 hour tour and a flight of 6 spirits. The guide takes you to where the stills are kept and then goes over the history of this disterlery and how everything is made, then you get to sample. Our guide was great and very educated.
I recommend this tour for those who like spirits. I am more of a beer person and did not care to sample warm spirits.

The tour was great. $ 7 for a 25 minute tour and 7 tastings. The guide was knowledgeable and entertaining. The tastings were great!

Had an awesome time on the tour! Drinks were fabulous and we learned so much. Be sure to bring cash to tip the tour guide and bartender, they deserve it.

Get there a few minutes early so you can grab a cocktail to sip while you tour. Our guide shared a great mix of i technical info and fun facts! The tastings were generous and they offer a discount on bottles or store merchandise after the tour!

Great tour. Our guide, Matt, was great too. With all the brewery tours I’ve done before, this was my first of a distillery. It was cool to learn about how different types of alcohol are made. The tasting at the end was cool too.
We were only there for an hr or so (& that included the tasting). We were only in 1 room the entire time. I’d say our time there was almost split between listening to Matt in the beverage making room, & the other half actually doing the tasting. Getting to try 6 of their different products was cool. Nice feature & a nice alternative to just beer tasting.
This was all done down in their lower level part of the facility. The upstairs was nice. Nice bar area, a lot of apparel & other things for sale, free popcorn, good deal! I’m not sure I would go back (at least not for tour). That part of it was 1 & done for me. But it was a nice tour overall & definitely worth the price of admission.

We walked in on a Saturday afternoon just to see if they happened to have any openings on a tour. They did not, but they said stick around for a few minutes if we want to see if someone doesn’t show up. So, we got a seat at the bar and thought we’d give the absinthe a try. It took a while, but a bar tender finally came over and asked what we wanted. I said we wanted to give the absinthe a try and she very snottily said «a try?». Had to repeat myself and she then said that samples were $ 1, so I was like, yeah, let’s do that then… She walked away and came back with the samples, and then never spoke to us again.
We wanted to order actual drinks, but no one gave us the time of day after that. Very rude if you ask me. They even have the samples on the drink menu, but apparently they need to put a disclaimer next to the menu item that says «only order if you want to be treated like shit.» There ended up not being any space on the tour, so we left the $ 2 for the samples on the bar and walked out.

Sunday afternoon hungover we decide let’s go on a distillery tour! Great idea. Not sure what we were thinking but alas, we were hungover, that’s another story though. So we go and end up having a great time.
Great Lakes isn’t gigantic, it’s actually not that big considering what they pump out of the place. We enjoyed tastings of all the liquors they have offer. From Absinthe to Gin we tried it all. These guys do it up right. Our tour guide was informative and humorous which helped us have a relaxing and enjoyable afternoon while walking about the facility. They run a tight ship here and it shows through the quality of the liquors they produce.
The bar area before you get into the actual distillery is awesome too! They make a mean Moscow Mule that is spicy gingery as all get out! This place is a must see if your in the area. One of MKE’s best!

I recently took GLD’s tour of their distillery and after tour tasting. The tour itself was sort of on the short side as there isn’t much to see actually. They have one distilling area, one aging area and one bottling area. That, literally, is the tour.
Where I felt that I got my money’s worth was the tasting after the tour. Our tasting guide wasn’t busy with other things in the tasting room and was able to give us a lot of information about what was being served and also a few «bonus rounds» on the house. I enjoyed the information gained from the guide in charge of the tasting a great deal– i gained a lot of great information!
I felt that I learned quite a lot from the tasting experience and I am sure that you will also.
The tour and tasting includes a $ 3 credit good for purchases in the GLD store the day of your visit.
PS: During the time of my visit to GLD, there were two tours of elderly people from retirement facilities. I felt that this was great that these people were being taken somewhere genuinely fun and also given some respect.

Awesome place to visit if you like spirits, nice employees, and a great tour of the distilling process. I will always come back, but next time, I’ll sit at the bar. The tour we took was fascinating and very informative, with free tastings at the end. But that pretty much got me blurry. I wasn’t in any shape to sit at the bar afterwards and enjoy a few more like I wanted. A+

Check in here on Unilocal and get 50% off your first cocktail… now that we have that out of the way let’s talk about GLD.
Everybody always talks about the tasting tour which for $ 7 is a great deal for 6 or 7 tastings and the tour. You can buy the tasting glass for $ 6 so don’t be a klepto and take it! The tour gives you information about some popular liquor which may make you not want to drink some of it again.
My favorite event at GLD is Festivus where they air grievances, have feats of strength and serve complimentary pancakes. They will have other events throughout the year but this is the best.
The two must try items on the tour are the Roaring Dan’s rum (named after the only Great Lakes pirate) and the barrel aged gin. The vodka is always a winner but the other items really stand out as unique.

The oldest distillery in Wisconsin at less than 20 years old, the Great Lakes Distillery literally paved the way for all other distilleries in the state. I mean, it took the owner alone 2 years to get his business running after getting legislature and such through. Mad respect for that persistence!
GLD impressed me. It’s tasting room was beautiful and had a popcorn machine. I love popcorn. Free popcorn is one of the best things on this earth. Walking to said machine was apparently enough to make one Unilocaler drop a couple stars in their review, so our bartender offered to get popcorn. I’d walk through an arid desert for free popcorn, so 10 feet to it was fine by me.
The tour was OK. I learned some things about distilling, and it was great that our guide encouraged bringing a drink with us. It’s not a huge space, so the tour was not long. Tours can be booked online, but my brother and I just bought ours there on a weekday without a problem.
The tasting after the tour was worth the $ 7 cost of the tour alone. 6 samples?! With all the free popcorn I want?! Yes, please!

While this distillery is small, the selection and staff are fantastic. We grabbed a drink before our tour, enjoying the imaginative cocktails. I had something they made for Bastille Days, which tasted delightful. Our guide seemed a bit dry at first, but that must have been because he was saving up some serious smart wit. His history lessons were my favorite part of the tour — there were pirates! It’s not a long tour (again, small space), but you learn a lot about liquor. At the end, we were able to taste 6 different products. This was a bit of a struggle for our group, and I imagine could be difficult for a lot of people. You are asked to sip room-​temp liquor. That’s rough, dude. I prefer chilled at least! But I’m game for an experience and did my best on each one.
After, we headed back upstairs and perused the wares. You get a discount on merch after a tour, which is a great opportunity to take home a bottle of something and mix it up to your own taste. We decided to hang out a little longer, so I asked the bartender for something «lovely with whiskey.» He presented me with «a little bit of this and a little bit of that» which turned out to be great! This is the perfect environment for you to ask your bartender to make something fun up. I would recommend taking out-​of-​town visitors on this tour of they like drinking, then tipsily hopping over to one of the many restaurants in walking distance.

Liquor is always better. Not only was this tour fun, informative, and affordable, the staff is so accommodating and friendly, it really made an all-​over excellent experience.
I reserved 15 tickets for my husband’s 30^th birthday celebration and although 4 people were unable to show, they still let us receive free drinks with our passes which was super nice. The tour, again super fun, humorous, and really interesting. For someone like my husband who loves small distilleries and how they work, this was tits. For someone like me who really loves to drink, I still liked hearing about the information and learned a lot! The tasting tour of 6 liquors was also a blast. We bought a bottle of whiskey and a few drinks after the tour as well as the vodka, whiskey, and gin was delicious.
Overall, it is well worth the whopping $ 7 per ticket. Plus you are in the snazzy 5^th Ward and can enjoy the other great restaurants in the area.

If you’re visiting Milwaukee, this is a great tour! Ross (I believe his name is) was funny and informative when giving the history of distilling in Wisconsin and explaining the machinery and processes that GLD uses.
You can quickly get in/​out, enjoy some great spirits and friendly conversations.

Came here for the tour yesterday. Really enjoyed it. The history of the distillery was very interesting. A bit lengthy but the tour guide pleasantly presented it. The tasting itself was great. They let you try some of their signature liquors, some good, some so-​so
It was well worth the value of what I spent. I bought the Groupon so it was only $ 7 for both my wife and I but truthfully I would’ve still paid the full $ 7/​each for. Great value for what I spent.

Great joint of the beaten path. Plenty of space inside to grab a chair at the roundbar, or a table alongside the windows. Walking around a bit, they had plenty of merch to memorialize your visit, although it came at a price. Over $ 30 for a ¹⁄₅ of vodka is a reach, as well as $ 40 for a hoodie. Grabbed a few specialty drinks whilst we lingered before a Bucks game. The Moscow Mule was solid, one of the better I’ve had. Their Bloody Mary was decent; smooth with a couple, but the Sriracha addition may overwhelm the more traditional Bloody fans.
Bar food was pretty kickin’ too. Not often do you run across pickled hard-​boiled eggs, but when you do, you freaking order some. Checked out their Charc board too… another home run. Three cheeses, three meats = two happy customers. Probably the OVERALL WINNER in our weekend charcuterie gorging.
Solid drinks, solid grub, the only lacking was in the service department. Mostly inattentive, almost shitty nose-​up vibe with one of our dist-​tenders. Seemed to be bouncing around talking to other employees and friends nearby rather than checking on drinks that were empty for 10 minutes. I actually had to signal for another dist-tender’s attention to get drinks (lame, bro). Other than that, we enjoyed our visit. CHEERS!
P. S. It can get expensive, with most drinks running around $ 8-​$ 11 bucks. Food prices were a tad more reasonable…

I’ve been to GLD twice now, once for the Unilocal matrimony event and once for the Santa Rampage, so I think I have a little better idea now of their products and what they’re going for.
The liquors:
Luv –
Pumpkin liquor
Absinthe! Elderflower flavor absinthe
Whiskey (I’m not partial to whiskey ever so this may be where I’m biased – I don’t like whiskey anyhow but ppl seem to like GLDs version)
Rum
Ok –
Gin
Vodka
(I guess once any version of these spirits are mixed in a cocktail, unless they’re cheap rail versions, I personally don’t have enough of a discerning pallet to notice the difference)
Drinks–
They had some sort of seasonal drink consisting of the pumpkin spirit-​liquor dealie, cider and bitters. So so good
They’re rum and cream soda drink is nice too.
The space–
Glad I finally made it upstairs– its a really airy and bright space up there… errr…not necessarily always what you look for in a bar but this was nice.
Lastly…
One single stall women’s bathroom downstairs, two upstairs… lots of drinks since it is a distillery… what’s wrong with this picture?
All in all though, well crafted drinks and spirits… the original distillery that seemed to have start this latest wave of new distillery’s opening in the area. Often copied, never duplicated.