Restless Spirits Distilling

Kansas City's first single malt whiskey did not come from a corporate campus or a celebrity partnership. It came from a former high school chemistry teacher working pot stills in North Kansas City. Restless Spirits Distilling calls itself the first Irish-American distillery in the heart of the U.S.A., and the operation is built on a family story: an ancestor who left Ireland in the famine years, and a fifth-generation descendant now running malted barley through stills a few miles from the Missouri River.

History & Heritage

Restless Spirits was founded in 2016 by Mike and Benay Shannon at 109 E. 18th Avenue in North Kansas City, Missouri, and its tasting room opened that March. Mike Shannon is a fifth-generation Kansas Citian of Irish descent. By the family's account, his great-great-grandfather Michael Joseph Shannon left Ireland in 1853, in the wake of the Great Irish Famine, and the Shannons had settled in Kansas City by the 1890s. Mike brought a brand-development background from companies like Bic and H&R Block. Benay Shannon, the distillery's co-founder and head distiller, taught high school chemistry before teaching herself to distill, and her son now handles warehouse and production duties alongside her. The New York International Spirits Competition has named Restless Spirits its Missouri distillery of the year repeatedly, with published winners lists confirming state honors every year from 2018 through 2024; the distillery counts the streak from its 2016 opening.

The Whiskey

The house style bridges two traditions. On the American side sits Restless Spirits Gullytown Double Barrel Aged Single Malt Whiskey, billed as Kansas City's first single malt: distilled from malted barley, with the first release aged six months in new charred oak and eighteen months in used bourbon casks. The name honors Gullytown, the nickname the distillery says Kansas City carried before its 1853 incorporation, when immigrant laborers cut the young city out of its river bluffs. On the Irish side, the Sons of Erin line offers aged Irish whiskey, including a four-year expression and a fifteen-year release aged in bourbon casks and finished in apple brandy casks. Stone Breaker splits the difference, blending four-year imported Irish whiskey with house-made malt whiskey distilled twice in traditional pot stills, and Restless Spirits Cinnamon Stone Breaker gives that blend a spiced turn. Beyond whiskey, the distillery produces Restless Spirits Builders Botanical Gin along with its Builders Heritage Dry and Builders Barrel Finished siblings, Duffy's Run Vodka, named for the Irish railroad laborers of Duffy's Cut, and Padraig's Rebellion Poitin, a traditional Irish clear spirit.

Why It Matters

Restless Spirits distills its own malt whiskey in Kansas City and is candid about what it imports: the Sons of Erin releases are aged Irish stock the distillery selects and finishes rather than house production. The brand has traveled well beyond the Northland, too. In 2019 Builders Botanical Gin became the official gin of the Boston Red Sox, and Restless Spirits sponsored the Builders Craft Cocktail Bar in the Kansas City Royals' Diamond Club that season. For those who appreciate good whiskey, the Gullytown program is a chance to taste what local malt becomes under a double-barrel regimen, and the Sons of Erin line shows a Northland producer curating serious aged Irish whiskey. The Sentinel Room's Reserve Whiskey Library holds seven Restless Spirits expressions, from Restless Spirits Gullytown 6 Yr Whiskey to Restless Spirits Sons Of Erin 10 Year, which makes the library a good place to trace this hometown producer's range side by side.

Visiting the Distillery

The distillery at 109 E. 18th Avenue in North Kansas City offers tours bookable through its website, along with an event space for private rental. The tasting room is open Tuesday through Thursday from 2 to 7 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 2 to 9 p.m., closed Sunday and Monday.