From Florida History to the Bottle
Long before Grove & Grain had a tasting room to call home, we had bottles to fill—and stories we wanted them to tell.
Creating a spirit is only part of building a distillery. Once the liquid is ready, you have to decide what the bottle will say before anyone ever takes the first sip.
For Grove & Grain, we knew we didn't want to invent a story just to sell a bottle.
We wanted to tell stories that were already here.
The First Bottles
Like most beginnings, our first bottles looked a little different than they do today.
Early Grove & Grain spirits were bottled under the Manor House name. They were the beginning of figuring out not only what we wanted to make, but what we wanted this distillery to become.
Over time, one idea kept pulling us in the same direction:
Florida.
Not palm trees and postcards. The older Florida—the places, people, agriculture, industry, and stories that existed long before the Florida most people know today.
That's where Grove & Grain began to find its identity.
Going Back to the Source
When it came time to develop our labels, we didn't want to simply sit behind a computer and search for something that looked historic.
We went looking for the history ourselves.
For Yulee Mill Silver Rum, that meant visiting the ruins of the historic Yulee Sugar Mill in Homosassa.
Standing among the old stonework and machinery makes the connection easy to understand. Sugarcane was part of Florida long before craft distilleries were—and today, we make Yulee Mill Silver Rum from 100% Florida sugarcane.
The mill became more than inspiration for a name. It became the visual identity of the bottle.
Turning a Real Place Into Art
Photographs from our visits became reference material for the illustrations you see on our labels today.
Rather than creating a polished, modern graphic, we wanted the artwork to feel like something pulled from another era—an engraving or illustration you might have discovered in an old Florida newspaper, book, or advertisement.
That same approach carries throughout Grove & Grain.
The places are real.
The history is real.
And the artwork is designed to make you curious enough to ask about the story behind it.
Aquabelle's Has a Florida Story, Too
Our gin took us in another direction—but stayed firmly rooted in Florida.
Aquabelle's Gin draws inspiration from the legendary underwater performers of nearby Weeki Wachee and from Brooksville's citrus-growing history.
Its mermaid artwork became one of the most recognizable pieces of the Grove & Grain identity, while the spirit inside carries that Florida connection through its distinctive tangerine-forward character.
Two very different bottles.
Two very different Florida stories.
One idea connecting them.
Old Florida, One Bottle at a Time
As Grove & Grain has evolved, so have our bottles, labels, and artwork. But the purpose behind them has become clearer.
We want someone to pick up a bottle of Grove & Grain and discover something about Florida they didn't know before.
Maybe that leads them to Homosassa to see the old sugar mill ruins themselves. Maybe they learn about the Aquabelles and Weeki Wachee. Maybe they discover a piece of Brooksville history they'd driven past a hundred times without noticing.
That's what we're building Grove & Grain around.
We're not just putting a Florida name on a bottle.
We're putting Florida's stories in one.
Old Florida, Rediscovered.
Drink Like a Floridian!
