Albuquerque distillery prepares to expand across state lines

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – It’s a homegrown success story not even the man behind it all saw coming. 

“We were doing this small family startup distillery. We were kind of doing it just for us and for fun mostly, and it kind of has blown up into this bigger thing than we thought it was going to be,” said Chris Leurig. 

Chris Leurig is the master distiller at Safe House Distilling Company in downtown Albuquerque. They opened in 2019 with their signature – Teller Vodka.

“So this vodka was our original vodka. It’s gluten-free, 10 times distilled, GMO free. and just very clean,” said Leurig.

People liked it, a lot.

“Since then we’ve grown from day one over 500% on our volume, and almost every year we almost double our production,” Leurig said. 

So they kept creating and people kept buying infused vodkas, gin and now bourbon.

With such a high demand they had to close their taproom for nearly a year to make space for more than 300 bourbon barrels. 

“We told everyone go enjoy our products at every other bar that’s selling them, those are our secondary taprooms across the state,” said Leurig. 

Not to mention their craft ready-to-drink cocktails are in more than 800 stores statewide, and have sold more than one million cans in the last two years. 

Now, our neighbors in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Texas, and Nevada will get a taste with distribution ramping up to cross state lines. 

“For the last year and a half we’ve been building everything supply chain quality everything to make sure when we start selling to these states we never run out or never lower our quality,” said Leurig. 

Leurig says they have another collaboration in the works with a local sports team, but we will have to wait until basketball season for more details.