john schrepel, head distiller

Still Austin’s Head Distiller, John Schrepel, found his passion early. Hailing from a small town in New York’s Hudson Valley, Schrepel got a job doing landscaping at a nearby winery—and quickly moved into other aspects of the facility’s operation. As it happened, the winery’s proprietor was in the process of building a whiskey distillery, featuring a huge column still. Within a couple of years, Schrepel had worked his way up to overseeing the operation of the Black Dirt Distillery. He was just eighteen years old.

After five years of running the largest distillery in New York State, Schrepel joined Still Austin as Head Distiller.  In his time at the helm of Still Austin’s production team, John has set his sights on redefining what a whiskey produced in the South can be. “I want to set a new standard for what older whiskey in Texas can be. I believe we can age whiskeys to 10 or even 15 years without producing over-oaked or overly tannic products, and I have several ideas that are showing promising results. I’m excited to see where things lead and ready to take on the challenge of designing a new state of the art distillery.”