Reestablishing the Whiskey City
Peoria once made more whiskey than anywhere else on earth. Then Prohibition shut it down, and for more than a century the Whiskey Capital of the World went quiet.
BLACK BAND Distillery exists to turn the lights back on.
We are Peoria’s first craft distillery since Prohibition — grain to glass, organic Midwest grain, Sankoty Aquifer water — built inside a century-old warehouse at 1000 SW Adams. Our work is not nostalgia for its own sake. It is a living return of place, craft, and pride to the city that once defined American whiskey.
The City We Come From
In the late 1800s, Peoria’s riverfront ran on stills. Distilleries and breweries lined the Warehouse District. The city earned its name the hard way: by producing more spirits here than any other place in the world.
Prohibition ended that. Plants closed. Jobs vanished. A defining industry — and a defining identity — disappeared. When repeal finally came, the whiskey capital never fully came home.
BLACK BAND was founded to change that.
Built the Hard Way
Founder and Principal Distiller Chris Ober did not rush this. Starting in 2006, he studied Peoria’s distilling history and the craft itself — courses with Kothe, an apprenticeship under Master Distiller Robert Birnecker in Chicago, and training at the Siebel Institute.
In 2017 he secured a historic warehouse with the height, timber, and brick the project demanded. Construction began in 2018. Whiskey production returned to Peoria in 2020. BLACK BAND opened in spring 2021.
That timeline matters. This brand was years in the making before the first bottle left the still — deliberate, local, and built to last.
From Grain to Glass
Every BLACK BAND expression starts with organic grain from Midwest farms and clean, mineral-balanced water from the Sankoty Aquifer — naturally filtered through sand and gravel, the same kind of local advantage distillers here relied on generations ago.
We distill on site. We age on site. We bottle on site. The point is simple: when you taste BLACK BAND, you should taste Peoria.
Recognized on the World Stage
Awards are not why we distill — but they matter to us, because they prove this work holds up when the bottle is judged with no label, no hometown story, and no second chances.
At the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, BLACK BAND has earned Double Gold and Gold medals across the portfolio — early confirmation that Peoria-made whiskey and spirits can stand with the best in the world.
At the 2026 ASCOT Awards, judged blind by the American Spirits Council of Tasters, BLACK BAND brought home ten medals, including three Double Platinums — the competition’s highest honor — for Straight Rye, Cask Strength Straight Rye, and Gin. Our Cask Strength Straight Rye earned Double Platinum and then Best Craft Rye. BLACK BAND Gin took Best Gin.
Those titles mean something here. They say the grain, the water, the still work, and the years of patience are landing in the glass. For a distillery built to restore Peoria’s whiskey identity, that kind of recognition is fuel — not a finish line. It tells our team, our farmers, and everyone who buys a bottle that Whiskey City is not a slogan. It is being rebuilt, pour by pour.
Why Your Support Matters
Buying a bottle, taking a tour, or sitting down at The Bar at BLACK BAND does more than fill a glass. It funds the return of a craft this city invented at scale and lost for a hundred years.
Help us reestablish the Whiskey City — one pour, one bottle, one guest at a time.
Raise a glass to Peoria’s past. Help us write what comes next.
A Brief History of BLACK BAND Distillery
FOUNDATIONAL TIMELINE
2006 — Chris Ober begins studying Peoria’s distilling history and the craft of fermentation and distillation.
2011 — Completes distillation coursework with Kothe Distillationstechnik.
2014 — Apprentices one-on-one with Master Distiller Robert Birnecker in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood.
2017 — Historic warehouse buildings are acquired; design begins.
2018 — Construction begins on the Warehouse District distillery.
2019 — Completes Craft Distilling Operations & Technology at the Siebel Institute of Technology.
2020 — COVID delays the public opening; whiskey production starts on site in Peoria for the first time in decades.
2021 — BLACK BAND opens in spring.
A Brief History of Alcohol in Peoria
LIBATIONS IN THE WHISKEY CITY
1837: First brewery established in the village of Peoria by Andrew Eitle, a native of Germany.
1843: Almiran Cole became first distiller of corn for profit, two years before Peoria was incorporated as a city.
1860: There were nine distilleries and six breweries in Peoria.
1862: President Lincoln places a 20-cent tax on a gallon of whiskey to help pay for Civil War costs. The tax would grow to up to $2 per gallon after the war.
1865: Peoria boasted 14 distilleries and seven breweries.
1867: John Gipps builds a small brewery in Peoria.
1875: The Woolner brothers establish the first of many large distilleries in Peoria.
1887: JB Greenhut forms the Whiskey Trust in Peoria. “The Octopus” lasts until 1895.
1899: Greenhut commissions the “Fritz” Treibel statue, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, in the Peoria Courthouse square.
1902: Carrie Nation brings her temperance message to Peoria.
1919: Prohibition arrives with the passage of the 18th Amendment.
1933: Hiram Walker builds a new plant in Peoria following the end of Prohibition.
1938: The Pabst plant in Peoria Heights is second only to Milwaukee in beer production for the company.
1953: Gipps Brewing is sold, ending decades of beer production in Peoria.
1982: Both Hiram Walker and Pabst close plants in the Peoria area.