For John Uselton and Michael Lowe, that the Rickey became the District’s official cocktail last year is something of a nice coincidence. The two, after all, are planning on producing gin and whiskey — both of which can be used in the cocktail — once they open up their planned New Columbia Distillery this summer.

For Uselton, a former beer buyer at Capitol Hill’s Schneider’s, and Lowe, a former lawyer and Uselton’s father-in-law, opening up the District’s first distillery in decades was a matter of both personal interest and market research. Over the last year, three hometown breweries have been established to wild acclaim, and the District is becoming a more discerning town when it comes to drinking.

“Knowing that there were no distilleries in D.C., my father-in-law and I saw a great opportunity. The idea of being the first craft distillery in the District excited us,” said Uselton. (The closest alternatives are the Catoctin Creek Distillery in Purcellville, which also produces gin, the Mount Vernon Distillery, which produces small amounts of whiskey, and Blackwater Distilling, which produces Sloop Betty vodka.)

With a weeklong distillery internship from Dry Fly Distillery in Spokane, Washington under their belts, an empty 3,500-square-foot warehouse sandwiched between West Virginia Avenue and New York Avenue in the Northeast neighborhood of Ivy City and a new 450-liter still, Uselton and Lowe have started laying the foundation for what they hope a production of 2,000 cases a year of gin and, once properly aged, whiskey. But why gin?

“Vodka is boring! The vodka market is very saturated right now. Additionally, vodka doesn’t allow for much if any creativity so it doesn’t really appeal to us. We both really enjoy gin and whiskey. And since there is much more wiggle room in the creation of these products, we are able to experiment and make the products unique,” said Uselton.

Moreover, Uselton and Lowe add, gin can be made relatively quickly, and they’d like to be producing by the time the warm weather hits and residents start thirsting for gin-and-tonics. (Or Gin Rickeys, of course.) The production of gin will help tide them over as they age their whiskey, which won’t likely see the market for another three or four years.

“We intend to sell enough gin that we won’t have to release whiskey before it is ready. A lot of craft distilleries are releasing whiskey under two years old. We are planning to barrel age for closer to three or four years. We are still in the decision making process regarding barrels, but we don’t plan to use little barrels to short-cut the aging. There are several barrel makers that will make barrels to our specifications,” said Uselton.

Beyond building out their eventual distillery and planning the gin recipe that they hope sets them apart, Uselton and Lowe have also started jumping through the necessary regulatory loops. They’ve met with local civic organizations and ANCs, which could well seem unhappy that a distillery is opening up right next to a possible medical marijuana cultivation center. (Uselton says that the community has been very inviting to them.) They’ve also followed the lead of the District’s breweries and started lobbying the D.C. Council for legislation that would allow them to host on-site tastings.

But unlike their beer-producing brethren, Uselton and Lowe have also been forced to deal with the federal government, which strictly regulates liquor production. Given the sheer tax potential from the sale of liquor, the regulating is left to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau of the Treasury Department, which will check that Uselton and Lowe aren’t under- or over-proofing their gin or sneaking a few bottles off for themselves. More importantly, though, it’ll be charging them the usual taxes — roughly $13.50 per proof gallon (around four bottles), said Lowe.

Citing what they call a “renaissance” in the District over the last few years, Uselton and Lowe are optimistic about the future. Prior to prohibition, they note, the District hosted bot breweries and distilleries, and there’s no reason that can’t happen again.

We’ll drink to that. A Gin Rickey, of course.

Additional reporting by Jamie Liu