Jones & Smith Distillery's Tony Jones planning Spring Hill expansion

Jones & Smith, the family-owned distillery based in Spring Hill, is planning to take the next step in its growth with the construction of cellar door and micro distillery at its Beasley Road base.

Priced at around $250,000, the plan to construct a production shed which will be joined to an existing shed on the southern portion of Mr Jones' property, which is split by the railway line.

At the moment, the Jones & Smith produces its award-winning gin in a shed near Mr Jones' home but the business' growth means more space is needed.

"I've ran out of room in the shed because everything's gone so well," Mr Jones said.

"I've just about got a whiskey release ready and I've got an aged brandy and another aged gin but we've ran out room in the shed and I've got to sort of pull everything out to make more room.

"So we're building a bigger shed."

Jones & Smith have grown the market through market tastings and attending the Canberra Gin Paloozas while the support of local distributors including The Agrestic Grocer, Ferment and the Lane Cellars and Orange restaurants has been invaluable.

But he would love to be able to spread the word at his own cellar door.

"That's what we're hoping for, to be able to do tastings and have a cellar door where we can have a nice little setting there," he said.

"It's unbelievable, we get a lot of phone calls, all week really, especially now things are opening up, things like "we've got a group of 10 coming to Orange on the weekend, can we call into your cellar door", it's like sorry, we've haven't got a cellar door," he said.

"We went to a Gin Palooza in Canberra, and it was unbelievable the reception we got.

"We did tastings and sold it by the bottle, and we sold out of almost everything they took down."

The distillery is also won gold at the Australian gin awards in October last year, and three silver medals.

"It's a passion," Mr Jones, who still works part-time at at local liquor outlet, said.

"I can't wait for [council approval] to happen so I can do it full time.

"It will be great for this area. I always had an interest in making whiskey, and of course wine and food's so big in Orange and in Millthorpe's it's big, and we're right in between [Spring Hill] so hopefully it will fit in with everything else."

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