The Wander-ful Liba Spirits

Devon Trevathan and Colton Weinstein are an adventurous pair of entrepreneurs. They’ve traveled to Australia and the United Arab Emirates, across Europe and back to the South. They’ve dined on kangaroo and sea-foraged kelp and sipped tobacco grappa in Italy. They almost got stranded in Dubai during the pandemic. They seek these unusual experiences all in the name of a good drink.

But these craft distillers are not looking for just any cocktail, or even for libations associated with their faraway destinations. The team soaks up the spirit, flavor, agriculture and culture of a location, then distills its own unique spirits—on-site—under the brand Liba Spirits.

“We travel to destinations around the world, using local distilleries and raw materials from the region to produce spirits with a sense of place, as seen through our lens,” says cofounder Trevathan, who calls the work “nomadic distilling.”

The business partners met while working at Corsair Distillery. They both love the science behind distilling and itched to do their own thing. Faced with the significant investment required to set up a traditional brick-and-mortar establishment, they considered an unconventional alternative. “No one was distilling individually in different locations, like we wanted to do. So we said, ‘Why not us?’”

Since 2020, that question has led not only to global adventures but also to recognition in national spirits-focused magazines Artisan Spirit and Imbibe, which listed Trevathan and Weinstein among 75 people to watch in 2024.

The operational challenges of Liba’s nomadic distilling include finding facilities with the capacity to host visitors and being nimble enough to work in new settings. The Liba team can spend a month or more working in a host distillery, which Trevathan compares to cooking dinner in a friend’s kitchen. In return for being highly adaptive, the Liba team benefits from the collegiality of fellow distillers, who lend fresh perspectives and input to processes.