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After spending years working behind the bar (and behind the scenes) at a number of Madison’s finest drinking establishments, cocktail savant Hastings Cameron is fulfilling a longtime dream of opening a beverage production facility and tasting room.
The city’s plan commission on Tuesday night approved a conditional-use permit to convert part of a building at 1401 Northern Court on Madison’s east side into a light manufacturing facility, distillery and tavern. The business, Imaginary Factory, will develop, produce and bottle a broad range of craft beverages, focusing first on liqueurs, potable bitters and aromatized wine.
“I view it as a flexible beverage production facility inspired by a food business incubator like the FEED Kitchens,” Cameron says. He plans to produce his own line of house spirits under the “Imaginary” label and will work with collaborators for small-batch contract production on their own recipes. Already in the works is a partnership with Spirited Women (a local group of female bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts) to produce an amaro, a type of Italian bitter digestivo. Cameron anticipates collaborating with other bartenders and folks in the beverage industry or even farmers who have ideas for new products.
“It is the intersection of creative experimental process and having the time and resources to get to the best possible realization of an idea,” he says of his business, which will handle all aspects of product production, from research and development to bottling and labeling.
Cameron, who is an organizer of Madison Cocktail Week and has helped develop cocktail programs at Gib’s, Tornado Steakhouse and Underground Kitchen, has been working on his own spirit recipes for several years, but he ran into trouble finding a production facility that fit his needs. There are a few large facilities in the state, but they focus on high-volume runs, Cameron says, and smaller craft distillery operations are more focused on growing their own brands rather than doing contract production.
“I would like to present something that’s the best of both worlds for someone in the early stages,” he says.
Construction on Imaginary Factory is anticipated to start in May, with product production starting as soon as October and a grand opening in December, though the timeline is tentative. The facility is next door to another beverage production facility, State Line Distillery, a grain-to-glass operation slated to open in June. Cameron says the businesses complement each other well, and he’s looking forward to collaborating with his neighbor.
“I’m excited to be next to [State Line], in part because I’ll learn by osmosis, and I will potentially buy some of my base materials from them.” says Cameron. “So [Imaginary Factory] is not quite grain-to-glass, but will be neighbor-to-neighbor.”
