By Roselle Chen

(Reuters) – Curls of smoke blanket a glass filled with bourbon whiskey and ice inside a 28,000-square-foot whiskey distillery in the trendy NoHo neighborhood in lower Manhattan.

Great Jones Distilling Co., New York City’s only whiskey distillery after Prohibition ended 100 years ago is New York City’s original and largest.

This four-story distillery opened its doors last month after six years of planning and many challenges.

Andrew Merinoff (31) is Great Jones Distilling Co.’s Project Manager. “To understand New York City’s distilling industry, one must understand its zoning.” We finally found 686 Broadway after a year and half of research.

Vendome made a 500-gallon container within the distillery.

Merinoff stated that the room in which this still is housed is explosion-proof. It can be taken out of it within 90 seconds. This makes it one of most safe distilling rooms around the globe.

While the distillation takes place on the spot, the whiskey will be aged at Black Dirt upstate New York for five to six more years.

Merinoff said that whiskey is the most difficult spirit to produce. This is an act of love.

Juan Domingo Beckmann is chief executive at Jose Cuervo’s Great Jones Distilling Co. It features a speakeasy, restaurant, cocktail bar, and event space.