Timber Creek Distillery

Timber Creek Distillery is a grain-to-glass craft distillery on a 240-acre family farm outside Crestview, roughly 45 minutes inland from the Emerald Coast’s beaches. Founded in 2014 by Master Distiller Aaron Barnes and Camden Ford, the operation distills its own bourbon, whiskey, rum, vodka, and gin on site rather than sourcing spirits from elsewhere, and it has built a reputation as one of Florida’s most awarded craft distilleries, with more than 40 competition medals to date.

What sets the spirits apart is the distillery’s proprietary PureBlend process. Instead of distilling a single mash and calling it done, Timber Creek distills each grain separately, ages each one in its own barrel, then blends the aged components together to build the final spirit. It is a more labor intensive way to make whiskey and bourbon, but it gives the distillers precise control over flavor, and the medal count suggests the extra work pays off.

A visit here centers on the working production floor rather than a roped off showroom. The standard distillery tour and tasting runs 45 to 90 minutes and costs $20 per person, walking guests past the actual stills and fermentation tanks while a guide explains the grain to glass process, followed by a curated tasting of the finished spirits. Guests who want to go deeper can book the Bourbon Blending Experience, a 60 to 120 minute session priced between $100 and $200 that gives visitors hands on access to blend and bottle their own custom bourbon to take home, a genuinely rare experience for a working Florida distillery.

Beyond the core tour, Timber Creek has built out a full slate of on farm experiences. Axe throwing sessions run 30 to 45 minutes under supervision for $20 and give visitors something active to do between tastings. A Wine and Chocolate Tasting, priced at $55 and built around Bacigalupi wine pairings, is available for guests who want a more relaxed sit down experience. The farm also hosts Pizza Saturdays, a weekly wood fired pizza service open to all ages that turns the property into a laid back weekend hangout, complete with a fire pit and patio space where families and groups linger well past the meal. Disc golf is available on the grounds as well, rounding out a property that functions as much like a rural entertainment venue as it does a working distillery.

The tasting room itself pours the full lineup of house spirits, including vodka, barrel aged rum, and the distillery’s Southern Reserve whiskey, several of which carry medals from competitions such as the Denver International Spirits Competition and The Fifty Best. Because the farm sits inland in Holmes and Okaloosa County farmland rather than on the coast, it makes a natural half day trip for visitors staying anywhere from Crestview to Niceville, Fort Walton Beach, or even Destin, especially paired with a stop at the nearby Baker Block Museum or a morning at Twin Hills Park.

Timber Creek is open Monday through Wednesday and Friday from 8 AM to 2 PM, and Saturday from 10 AM to 4 PM, with the property closed Thursdays and Sundays. Given the range of paid experiences, from the standard tour to axe throwing to the bourbon blending session, booking ahead through the distillery’s website is strongly recommended, particularly for weekend visits when Pizza Saturdays draws a crowd. Whether the draw is the production tour, a flight of award winning spirits, or an afternoon throwing axes and eating wood fired pizza with a drink in hand, Timber Creek Distillery gives visitors a reason to venture inland from the beach and see where the Emerald Coast’s most decorated spirits actually get made.