There’s a new distillery, 40-acre farm and farmers market opening in Pierce County
Establishing a distillery was at the top of Clinton Bridges’ to-do list about five years ago. However, something else made that list shortly after an offer from his neighbor, the owner of Scholz Farm.
“He joked: ‘If you got big plans, maybe you want to buy my property,’” Bridges said. “It was just a joke at the time, but then as he thought about it … he came to us with a more serious proposal.”
Bridges grew up in Buckley. He was in the Navy for about eight years before he purchased the property and started the McMillin Farm at 12517 state Route 162 E. In addition to the 40-acre farm, he owns a distillery adjacent to it — on five acres of land he inherited from his uncle after he passed away.
Bridges is planning to host the Pierce County farm’s first farmers market April 30 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The farmers market will take place Saturdays until Sept. 17. About 70 vendors have expressed interest in participating so far, Bridges said.
“Due to COVID, we’ve seen a lot of the farmers markets become a little lackluster,” Bridges said. “We would like to see that come back as strong as we can get it. … What better place to have a farmers market than on a farm?”
The farmland is empty at the moment, but when the weather gets warmer Bridges wants to plant corn, squash, raspberries and strawberries. He also wants to grow green beans, zucchini, onions and maybe a small batch of watermelons. They grew pumpkins last fall.
Other projects on the farm are still in their early stages. After all, it was not until 2020 that the wheels started turning.
A building next to the prominent, 90-year-old red barn is in the process of turning into a storefront where they’ll sell harvested fruits and vegetables. Bridges hopes to finish construction by early April.
“When the storefront comes up, we can get a steady revenue coming in,” Bridges said.
The building for the distillery is not open to the public. Walls and windows have yet to be placed, and two other buildings — a kitchen and storage — have yet to be built from the ground up. The distillery equipment is stored in a garage-like space in the meantime.
Plans for an administrative office are also in the works, which will be adjacent to the distillery. Bridges said the office will have desks, computers as well as an employee kitchen and bathrooms.
The McMillin Hot Sauce Fest 2021 in September marked the first event the farm hosted for the public. Over 15 hot sauce vendors were present, including his brother-in-law, Matt Avila. Avila owns a hot sauce company called Avila Gorilla.
After the hot sauce festival came pumpkin patch season. Last year marked the first time the farm had its own fall festivities.
The farm also sold Christmas trees and wreaths in late November. Bridges said they sold almost 200 trees.
Bridges did not come from a family of farmers. The opportunity to grow and harvest corn in a huge space was one of the factors that pushed him to purchase the farm. Only the best-looking or best-tasting corn is harvested, which is only one-third of the total crop, he said.
Two-thirds of the crop is returned back to the ground for the soil to get nutrients from, he said. Bridges’ plan is to use those leftover crops for his distillery, where he will produce hard liquor like bourbon or whiskey that’s historically made out of corn.
“We weren’t necessarily looking to become farmers. We were trying to be distillers. Now we’re both,” Bridges said.
This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
